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| One of the many modern buildings in the 13th. |
The 13th arrondissment not only hosts the iconic Chinatown district, but also the new neighborhood "Paris Rive Gauche" or Left Bank Paris. As soon as I got off the "Avenue de France" tramway station, I saw lots and lots of new construction. Scaffolding and cranes encircled modern buildings with lots of metal sheeting and unconventional shapes and configurations -- quite the antithesis of the Napoleonic era Haussmann buildings most people imagine when thinking about Paris. The 13th is a dynamic a lively neighborhood that surprisingly was not overly dense or crowded. I'll have to go back in the fall to verify this last statement. It could just be the case that the residents were all on vacation...
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| more modern architecture |
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| 13th arrondissement with the National Library of France in the background (on right). |
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| lots of construction happening in the 13th. |
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| Old SNCF (the train company) warehouse known as "les squatt" . SNCF rented out the space to artistes as living quarters and workshop area. It is now owned by the city of Paris. |
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| The outside wall of the building is almost entirely covered by graffiti. |
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| Crocheted mailbox at "les squatts". Translation "without a target to follow". |
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| more modern buildings in the 13th. |
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| The François-Mitterrand Library of National Library of France. Contains over 14 million volumes of books and magazines. |
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| The Francois Mitterand Library has four tours on each corner of the library reaching a height of 79 meters 259 feet. The four wings enclose the 400 m by 200 m grand esplanade where the center looks onto a large woodsy garden. |
