Bercy

For a Frenchman Bercy probably refers to either the Ministry of Finance and Industry or to the nearby sports/concert complex, but it is actually an area delimited by the Seine to the south, the Ministry of Finance and Industry to the west, the railway deserving Gare de Lyon to the north and the periferique to the east. It is opposite Seine Rive Gauche (see The Parisian Docklands ) and is linked to the National Library by the beautiful foot bridge named after Simone de Beauvoir.   

On Saturday morning I had an appointment with Hélène, a young historian specialised in architecture, for a walk around the area of Bercy. link We started with the sports complex which is a grass covered pyramid-like building in concrete, steel and glass, which was inaugurated by Jacques Chirac in 1984. Up to 18,000 spectators can assist to an event there! For long it was the only new building in the area, but it became the start of the development of Bercy as it is known today.

Next we had a look at the Ministry of Finance and Industry which was inaugurated in 1988. Prior to this date the ministry was split out on 47 sites with the main site being in part of the Louvre. Since the Louvre was going to be renovated, it was decided to join all the office on one site, and the enormous building in Bercy was built. It actually consists in 5 buildings with 230,000 m2 of surface....... 6,000 people work here, and apparently it is getting too small. No wonder; they need more people to handle the poor financial situation of France! The helicopter platform is apparently also too small for modern day helicopters. Fortunately from the ministry there is direct access to a shuttle service on the Seine taking those who have to go to the National Assembly or elsewhere by boat.

The ministry is doted by works of art. Why is that? Well, in the 1930ies the French government decided that in order to support artists in a time of crisis 1% of the budget for any public building has to be spent on art. Considering the costs of the ministry it explains the bronze statues along the building and the huge bronze gate.  The main building is long and relatively narrow; it is built like a bridge with arches that permit traffic to drive underneath it along the Seine and also further inland. Hélène said that the steel used to hold one arch weighs more than the Eiffel Tower!

In 1993 The American Culture Centre designed by Frank Gehry was opened. Fortunately for the public the centre had to close two years later for financial reasons, and it was then purchased by the French government, which turnt it into the National Film Archives. It opened in 2005 and gives an elegant touch to the area, I think. Yesterday there was a long queue to get into the current exhibition with drawings by Tim Burton, but we managed to get into the hall where we  admired the the elegant lines:

 

Next to the Cinémathèque we admired the housing projects before arriving at the beautiful old wine warehouses at the Passage Saint Emilion where shops and restaurants are united along the cobble stoned streets leading on to further warehouses in the Pavillions de Bercy where there is a museum dedicated to fun fairs. Bercy then finishes off with a huge private business centre called Lumière.

We then returned through the warehouses into the park, which consists in three parts: a romantic garden, a utility garden with wine stocks, flowers and vegetables and a praire open for sports, dogs and children's games.  The park brings together the history of Bercy: there was previously a castle here, and this is where the wine coming in from all over France was bottled and taxed.  The rail tracks are still visible, and I really think that the architects have succeeded in creating something modern and yet fully respecting the history of the place.

We finished on the foot bridge across the Seine from where we had a good view of the arch of the ministry as well as the National Library on the left bank. Near the bridge there were two rows of bronze sculptures called something like Children of the World: funny, touching scultures showing a Mexican with his poncho, a Brazilian in his colourful t-shirt,   A Venezian with his carnival mask, a red Indian with his feathers, etc, etc.

After this beautiful morning I decided to try out a popular (cheap) restaurant belonging to a chain of restaurants called Hippotamus. Horror of horrors! When the waiter showed me a table near the door, I should have turnt around and gone to the brasserie next door. He was incapable of taking a simple order, as I discovered when my plate arrived: my coca-cola 0% became a normal coca-cola, my bernaise sauce became a BBQ sauce, my well done steak was soft and rosy inside as if it had recently been defrosted, and my fries were soft. Don't go there! I think that even McDonald's can do it better.