Zone: An Alternative History of Paris

Price
$29.95
Temporarily Out of Stock
  • ZONE: AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF PARIS by Justinien Tribillon
A history of modern Paris, looking at how the construction of the city post WWII shaped the social fabric of the city

If you want to understand Paris today you need to go beyond the palaces and boulevards and discover the Perif. In The Zone, Justinien Tribillon takes the reader on a walk around the Parisian edgelands. He shows how the city should be read from the outside inwards.

How can the history of a ring road tell the history of a city? Post-war Paris is the story of the Periferique, constructed in the aftermath of Word War Two to modernise the city. The ring road started as a dream of a new modern metropolis but soon became a dividing line: between inner and outer cities; between the bourgeois centre and the immigrant outskirts. Here the dividing line of the city, and of the nation, soon found their form within the liminal banlieu.

The Zone is a subject for urbanists everywhere who are interested in social housing, social engineering, the consequences of immigration and riots. This book is The City of Quartz for Parisians. The site of dreams as well as the realities of La Haine, the Zone so often misunderstood, is show to be the best way to understand modern Paris, and even France itself.
Zone: An Alternative History of Paris
$29.95
Temporarily Out of Stock
Description
AN OUTSIDER’S GUIDE TO MODERN PARIS

In The Zone, Justinien Tribillon takes the reader on a tour of an eponymous Parisian hinterland. The site of dreams and nightmares, from Van Gogh’s paintings to the cinematic  violence of La Haine, the Zone, so often misun- derstood, is the key to understanding today’s  Paris, and even France itself.

Originally the site of defensive walls, alongside which mushroomed makeshift housing, allotments, and dancehalls in the nineteenth century, the Zone has performed many functions and been a place of contention for  two centuries. Dismantled in the 1920s, the fortifications were first replaced with gardens, stadia and homes. After the war came the Boulevard Périphérique, a ring road promising seamless travel in a futuristic car-centric Paris. With the ring road came new dreams of modernity in reinvented suburbs: new towns, high-rise architecture and social housing built at record speed. Yesterday’s Paris made way for tomorrow’s banlieue.

But the metropolitan dream was never realised. The Zone became a symbol of division: between inner and outer cities; between the bourgeois centre and the working-class immigrant outskirts; between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The Zone, both a physical space and a powerful myth, came to crystallise the social, spatial and ethno-racial differences between Paris and the banlieue.

The Zone is a brilliant anatomy of the true heart of Paris. An essential book for urbanists and historians.
Description
AN OUTSIDER’S GUIDE TO MODERN PARIS

In The Zone, Justinien Tribillon takes the reader on a tour of an eponymous Parisian hinterland. The site of dreams and nightmares, from Van Gogh’s paintings to the cinematic  violence of La Haine, the Zone, so often misun- derstood, is the key to understanding today’s  Paris, and even France itself.

Originally the site of defensive walls, alongside which mushroomed makeshift housing, allotments, and dancehalls in the nineteenth century, the Zone has performed many functions and been a place of contention for  two centuries. Dismantled in the 1920s, the fortifications were first replaced with gardens, stadia and homes. After the war came the Boulevard Périphérique, a ring road promising seamless travel in a futuristic car-centric Paris. With the ring road came new dreams of modernity in reinvented suburbs: new towns, high-rise architecture and social housing built at record speed. Yesterday’s Paris made way for tomorrow’s banlieue.

But the metropolitan dream was never realised. The Zone became a symbol of division: between inner and outer cities; between the bourgeois centre and the working-class immigrant outskirts; between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The Zone, both a physical space and a powerful myth, came to crystallise the social, spatial and ethno-racial differences between Paris and the banlieue.

The Zone is a brilliant anatomy of the true heart of Paris. An essential book for urbanists and historians.
ISBN
9781804294048
Publication Date
July 9, 2024
Binding
Hardcover, Hardback
Item Condition
New
Language
English
Pages
208
Keywords
History | Europe | France; Political Science | Public Policy | City Planning & Urban Development; Social Science | Sociology | Urban