Or, what the loss of art nouveau métro stations can warn us about the erosion of cultural sustainability
“It may be surprising to foreign visitors but the French have never really liked art nouveau. There was great opposition to [the] Métro entrances. While visitors saw them as marvellous symbols of the belle époque Métro, Parisians criticised it as what they called spaghetti style and couldn’t understand why tourists liked them.” – Fabien Choné
Art nouveau is just one ‘layer’ of architecture in a city, as is arts and crafts, art deco, modernism all the way through to googie, brutalism, blobitecture and new classical. They all have a story to tell. They all have meaning. But at what point can we truly decide that “that style’s no good any more, we don’t like it, let’s demolish it and replace it with the next big thing.” Will future generations thank us?
Should we be doing more than we are to preserve the legacy all around us in our cities?
Find out in this week’s Sketch…
#paris #hectorguimard #metropolitain #urbanmemory #culturalsustainability #urbicide #artnouveau