The south-east of Paris is undergoing a renaissance. The disused former railway line has been landscaped, and benches and skater ramps installed. The futuristic portico of the Ministry of Finance straddles the quay and is reflected in the water. Artistic creation and rehearsals take place at the Frigos, the former Paris-Ivry refrigerator station.
The tramway is back on track. The Diderot University is once again open to students on the site of the former Grands Moulins flourmills. The Cité de la Mode et du Design project occupies the site of the former bonded warehouses. A shopping centre now flourishes on the paving stones of abandoned covered markets, and pagodas dot 1970s tower blocks. You won’t believe your eyes!
Flowering palisades, workers’ housing blocks standing shoulder to shoulder with skyscrapers, organic vegetable gardens on the waste ground of warehouses that back on to smoked-glass offices. And to go from one side of the Seine to the other, there are lush green tunnels, bridges of spindle-shaped steel, and an undulating footbridge between the four book-shaped towers of France’s national library – the Bibliothèque Nationale de France – and the contemporary cinema …
Since the time of the medieval tanners on the banks of the River Bièvre, nothing has been lost, everything has transformed!
