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Simply..in one day....

27/4/2019

5 Comments

 
 ..to see these two buildings in Paris was mindblowing!

We saw Sainte Chapelle in the morning and Frank Gehry's Fondation Louis Vuitton building in the evening.

Neither building has anything to do with shelter from the elements!  They are about power, wealth and status, poetry and spirituality, and skill and daring and large egos - and they are both exciting to see.

Both buildings are outrageous in their own ways, in their audacity and extravagance. I think that's what we respond to...

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I want to know more. It was built in only seven years, it was built to house holy relics brought from Constantinople as it then was, many ordinary people were living miserable lives in Paris in 1248, it employed skilled often itinerant engineers and craftsmen some of whom worked all over Europe. Literally awesome!

Awesome could also describe Frank Gehry's Fondation Louis Vuitton, which is a gallery and concert hall.

In a (rather grudging) review in The Guardian Oliver Wainwright said that Frank Gehry 'doesn't know when to stop'. The same may well have been said of Louis 1X.

Here are Heather and I reflected on the skin of this extraordinary building. It was open until 9pm, not busy  and there was a beautiful sunset.

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Tomorrow LOTS of photos of this building....
5 Comments
Rosemary
28/4/2019 11:52:50 am

This is a poem I wrote for a sadly bereaved Methodist minister after I'd first seen the Sainte Chapelle. Not able to use italics here, Revelation should be in italics because I mean the book in the Bible. I'm quoting what is said in it about the new earth, the new heaven and the coming of the new Jerusalem. Hope it comes out 'poem shaped'. Your post recalled that beautiful place to me.

IN THE CELESTIAL CITY

You write to me of realised eschatology,
burdened and disastrously bereaved, not preaching
but courageously still saying
that Heaven is now and
here is where God is.

I like to visualise you in this air-spun chapel,
to the medieval devout the Celestial City,
sitting beneath its jewelled walls
your legs crossed, tired, but still and calm;
and from hour to hour, as the sun moves round,
see, one by one,
these stained-glass chapters of the Bible float down in
new rich blues and cordial rubies
over your head, your sleeves, your feet.

And when evening brightens in the west,
and in burning sunset best, Revelation
descends upon the walls and floor,
then, unbelieving fellow human-being,
I hope to see the new heaven, the new earth,
the new Jerusalem like unto transparent glass
light you as you rest, legs crossed,
your feet, your sleeves, your head
bathed in topaz, emerald and amethyst.

Reply
Lotta link
28/4/2019 12:09:38 pm

That's so beautiful Rosemary. Your words and Freda's pictures have brought it to life for me.

Reply
Freda
28/4/2019 02:15:40 pm

Rosemary thank you for sharing that. It will be part of my mental image of Sainte Chapelle from now on. Beautiful.

Reply
Viv link
29/4/2019 02:54:50 am

What stunning pictures Freda and the beautiful poem by Rosemary. These buildings are breathtaking a tribute to the craftsmen that worked on them - and I expect without any health and safety policies in place in those days!

Reply
Freda
29/4/2019 01:47:25 pm

It is sobering to think that people died in the making of them....

Reply



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    An artist seeking a simpler life - (but not too simple!)

    All words and images copyright Freda Waldapfel 2010 - 2020

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