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| L'obelisque |
Which is why it's kind of odd that I must have seen this plaza fewer times than I can count on one hand.
The few times I had been there I must have
dithered about as if in a dream,
some kind of hapless mote
floating through on a sunbeam
(from Burning Pizzle by J. Trenchwheat)
because I'd never really quite grokked -- done the spit-take as it were -- the fact that there's an obelisk fountain at the dead center. And if there's anything I'd grok, it's an obelisk fountain. This quiet, almost hidden plaza in the midst of one of Toulouse's hubbiest bubs features an obelisk and, as Prof. Freedom Williams once said, "I'd never even gone "hmmm."")
dithered about as if in a dream,
some kind of hapless mote
floating through on a sunbeam
(from Burning Pizzle by J. Trenchwheat)
because I'd never really quite grokked -- done the spit-take as it were -- the fact that there's an obelisk fountain at the dead center. And if there's anything I'd grok, it's an obelisk fountain. This quiet, almost hidden plaza in the midst of one of Toulouse's hubbiest bubs features an obelisk and, as Prof. Freedom Williams once said, "I'd never even gone "hmmm."")
The
Place de Bologne is relatively new, so it's jut another indication that
the Egyptian Revival is still going strong in Toulouse (I've written
extensively about plethora of contemporary pyramid
monuments in the metropolitan area). Egypt remains a source of
inspiration for architects, developers, and builders as it has since the
Phoenicians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans -- times when Egyptian
civilization was the antiquity of what we consider our own antiquity.
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| Place de Bologne as seen from the LoS helicopter |
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| Take a S.I.P. |
Osiris has the cool-for-us title of the "Lord of Silence" -- but he was also known as the "Lord of the Dead" and the "King of the Living". Interesting
-- perhaps the Groupe seeks to evoke the importance of urban planning
and lodging as a controlling force in our lives. Haussmann certainly
understood the relationship between urban geography and political
liberty when he designed wide boulevards favorable to army forces and
cannon at the expense of the narrow streets favorable to building
blockades and defending the poor quarters with rusty rifles and kitchen
knives.
When Toulouse performed the same kind of "remodeling"
(at about the same as Haussmann), the city's motivations were probably
less strategic than practical in terms of everyday traffic. In any
event, if an urban zone is defined by the constant reconstitution of its
component parts (to paraphrase T.A. Wilson), a city is in a constant state of degeneration, regeneration, and transformation.
Osiris worship was in essence a cult of regeneration and rebirth, and a city it essentially an entity which is dying and re-birthing itself at every second of every day. The city is its own mother, father, and child, a family coiled-up into a convoluted relationship which at its mutating center is a kind of cosmic incest. (If in fact we can speak of a center at all; perhaps it's less inaccurate to speak of something so folded up in upon itself that it's all periphery.
Given the increasingly restrictive circles in which the elite travel, and -- like boolean ovals -- intersect through various boards, clubs, business groups, Lodges -- tighter and tighter as we head towards the tip of the pyramid -- it's no small wonder these increasingly reduced and therefore intimate business bedfellows move with ease within the nomenclature of this incestuous Egyptian genealogy: Horus, Osiris, Cheops....
One of the many challenges facing urban planners is how to move a city forward without totally destroying its past. One can't forbid any and all new construction in an historic city or we end up stunting a city's dynamism. We have a static showpiece where we can't even put in a new skylight because it doesn't mesh with the surrounding 19th century character, for instance.
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| King of the Living Room |
Osiris worship was in essence a cult of regeneration and rebirth, and a city it essentially an entity which is dying and re-birthing itself at every second of every day. The city is its own mother, father, and child, a family coiled-up into a convoluted relationship which at its mutating center is a kind of cosmic incest. (If in fact we can speak of a center at all; perhaps it's less inaccurate to speak of something so folded up in upon itself that it's all periphery.
Given the increasingly restrictive circles in which the elite travel, and -- like boolean ovals -- intersect through various boards, clubs, business groups, Lodges -- tighter and tighter as we head towards the tip of the pyramid -- it's no small wonder these increasingly reduced and therefore intimate business bedfellows move with ease within the nomenclature of this incestuous Egyptian genealogy: Horus, Osiris, Cheops....
One of the many challenges facing urban planners is how to move a city forward without totally destroying its past. One can't forbid any and all new construction in an historic city or we end up stunting a city's dynamism. We have a static showpiece where we can't even put in a new skylight because it doesn't mesh with the surrounding 19th century character, for instance.
That
said, I'm a firm believer in taking the time and spending whatever is
necessary to properly investigate new construction sites and thinking
long and hard about what we're destroying. When in the 19th century the
city of Toulouse plowed through the medieval warren of the centre ville
to create a logically straight pair of central axes, they did indeed
facilitate movement through the center of town; they also forever
destroyed its medieval character. The neighborhoods around these axes
remain today among Toulouse's most beautiful streets. Imagine what has
been lost.
In my own time, during the renovation and construction of the new Palais de Justice,
the remains of the palace of the Counts of Toulouse were found; minimal
archaeological investigation was carried out and what we might have
learned from it has probably been lost forever.
Not
so far from there, the destruction of a building attached to the Church
of the Dalbade revealed a medieval cemetery underneath. This was also
investigated, but then, poof, a new building appeared and the cemetery
was lost forever.
The
Place de Bologne is another such place, which "represents in an
edifying manner the problems posed by a certain kind of urbanism" (here).
Some of the buildings were renovated for use in the current plaza, but
some very old buildings, in one of the oldest parts of Toulouse, were
simply destroyed. If we were dealing with some run-of-the-mill urban
building, we could shrug it off as acceptable change. "Urban Renewal"
has been used to put lipstick on the pig of various corrupt and
disruptive schemes dreamed up by developers eager to squeeze every last
coin from every last square foot, but if we look past the abuse of this
doctrine, we'll find it's a necessary and even positive part of urban
evolution. Without renewal, there is no urban stasis, only decay.
But the ruins here were in fact the last vestiges of the palace of the Visigoth kings of Toulouse, before various depredations obliged them to remove to Toledo (Spain, not Klinger's hometown).
This is an important and relatively under-known period of the city's history: the Dark Ages, the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages -- the Visigoths being one of the tribes who brought that about -- in the epicenter of Gallo-Roman France. The Visigoths had sacked Delphi and Rome and legend has it that they made off with the spoils of Solomon's Temple. They built the first Church of the Daurade in an octagonal, Byzantine style, so-named for its golden mosaics. Their kingdom extended from Andalusia to the Loire and Toulouse was their capital; Place de Bologne was the epicenter.
But the ruins here were in fact the last vestiges of the palace of the Visigoth kings of Toulouse, before various depredations obliged them to remove to Toledo (Spain, not Klinger's hometown).
This is an important and relatively under-known period of the city's history: the Dark Ages, the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages -- the Visigoths being one of the tribes who brought that about -- in the epicenter of Gallo-Roman France. The Visigoths had sacked Delphi and Rome and legend has it that they made off with the spoils of Solomon's Temple. They built the first Church of the Daurade in an octagonal, Byzantine style, so-named for its golden mosaics. Their kingdom extended from Andalusia to the Loire and Toulouse was their capital; Place de Bologne was the epicenter.
The
worst part is what they destroyed it all for; the architecture is
unremarkable and the entrances to the plaza are gated, giving the
impression of a private rather than a public space. Indeed, all the
buildings on the plaza are a tightly controlled development, not really
an organic residential zone but operated by one of the powerful
developers which have had so much power in determining the ever fluid
urban and suburban landscapes of French cities and villages
As one site puts it "the
result of these errors makes this place close, cold, without life.
With a century of history destroyed beneath our feet." Interesting now
that I think of it. Another one of these "dead zones" is Compans
Caffarrelli, which, incidentally, is another big plaza surrounded by
high-rises, a public space privatized, basically, but with a cold and
inert feeling despite the fact that several hundred people probably live
there.
One must also consider the chilling effect of all this not only on street life, but free speech. Consider this anecdote from a few years ago:
One must also consider the chilling effect of all this not only on street life, but free speech. Consider this anecdote from a few years ago:
Taking pictures of this pyramid and architecture, Daurade was approached by a squat little security guard, a little nervous and scowling, who informed him that taking pictures is forbidden. So there you have it. On the city streets one is free to photograph what one wants. But as all this public space is enclosed and privatized, public inquiry and expression are somewhat less free. In fact, taking a photo is forbidden. Whatever the reason for this, security probably, it still doesn’t eclipse the fact that in this new world order everything will be for sale, and those with money to buy are welcome. As long as the money keeps flowing in the right direction: up towards the pinnacle.
The
fountain isn't remarkable: an obelisk in an octagonal basin, accessed
by three steps which form the octagonal base. The plaza itself is paved
in the same form. I suppose one could read something into the three
steps in terms of Freemasonry, but that may be pushing it! It occurs to
me that this is the second thing in this post described as octagonal;
it's possible the form of the plaza is a reference to the original
Church of the Daurade which sat in roughly the equivalent position at
the other end of the Quai Lucien Lombard.
I've already mentioned in a few posts how the Count of Montalambert called Toulouse
the "home of vandalism". Part that vandalism isn't just the
destruction of history, but replacing what has been destroyed by shite
architecture. Toulouse has recently been obliging people on the
outskirts to sell their homes so they can be razed and big dumpy
apartment blocks put in their place. The whole quasi-rural character of
vast tracts close to the dead center of Toulouse have been sucked into a
cold and sterile, inorganic mess of character-less, undifferentiated
buildings.
So,
I was attracted by the Egyptian obelisk and, sniffing around for
anything vaguely Masonic, came across the two developers using triangles
-- a subject to which I've already dedicated both a post and a Picasa album
-- one of these developers specifically evokes Osiris. A curious
choice, given the theme of death and rebirth. They certainly killed
something off here -- a piece of history which could furnish much-needed
detail about the Visigoth period of Toulouse -- but whether something
worthwhile has been born from this remains to be seen.
