Montparnasse Architecture

From Paris Hotels Reviews

Montparnasse Architecture

Dominated as it is by the skyscraping blade of its tower, the busy boulevards, and the large-scale developments around the station, Montparnasse can feel a little inhuman and over-modernized. Wandering down the backstreets, however, you can find some kindlier examples of architecture, ranging from the playful lines of early Art Deco to the diaphanous contemporary glasswork of Jean Nouvel’s Foundation Cartier.

26 rue Vavin, 6°, M° Vavin. A block of flat decked in white and blue tiles, with terraced balconies stepping back to allow terrace gardens to flourish in the light. Built by Henri Sauvage in 1912.

Rue Schoelcher and rue Froidevaux, 14°, M° Raspail/Denfert-Rochereau. A parade of varied nineteenth-and early twentieth-century styles. Check out 5 rue Schoelcher, especially, for its beautiful Art Deco balconies and windows, dating from 1911 (Picasso had his studio 5bis for a short time in 1916). The artist’s studios at modernity are complete. Also worth seeing are 11 and 23 rue Froidevaux, the last being a 1929 block of artists’ studios, with huge windows for northern light and fabulous ceramic mosaics.

266 boulevard Raspail, 14°, M° Raspail/Denfert-Rochereau. A recently completed private architecture and interior design academy with a marked Beaubourg influence, notably the external stairs and blue pipe columns in front. The original Ecole Spéciale d’ Architecture building, at no. 254, dates from 1904.

31 rue Campagne-Premiére, 14°, M° Raspail. Myriad shell-like, earthenware tiles by Alexandra Bigot encrust the concrete structure of André Arividson’s utterly desirable 1912 apartments, with their huge, iron-frame studio windows. Man Ray had a studio here in the early 1920s.

Foundation Cartier, 261 bd Raspail, 14°, M° Raspail. One of Jean Nouvel’s most successful airy, postmodern steel-and-glass structures. For a full account, see p.176.

Passage d’Enfer, 14°, M° Raspail. Parallael to rue Campagne Premiére, this narrow, cobblestoned street – whose names translates as "Hell Alley" – was once a Cité Ovriére, or cul-de-suc of nineteenth-century worker’s housing. The unusually small, terraced buildings are now utterly covetable.