Musée des Arts Forains – All the Fun of the Fair
THE MUSÉE DES ARTS FORAINS is a fairground museum housed in the former wine warehouses at Cour Saint-Émilion in the 12th arrondissement.
It’s a private museum created by Jean Paul Favand and it contains a fascinating collection of carousels and funfair stalls, all restored and in working order, as well as costumes and historic works from 1850 onwards.
This is a private collection and so it’s usually only possible to visit the museum by appointment only. They cater mainly for group visits and corporate functions but occasionally the museum opens its doors to the general public. One such occasion has been over this Christmas and New Year period so I took advantage of it and paid a visit.
Having paid my €12 entry fee, I was transported into the world of the funfair, a world full of colour, spectacle and entertainment.
I was captivated by this old cycle carousel and even more captivated by the sounds as the ride got underway and the cycles and their riders trundled round and round. It’s fascinating to think that these are the same sounds that anyone visiting this carousel would have heard over a hundred years ago.
Sounds of the cycle carousel:
The museum comprises themed rooms each with its own take of the world of the funfair. “Les Salons Vénitiens” offers an Italian opera show performed by automatons as well as a gondola carousel. “Le Théâtre du merveilleux” offers a glimpse of the turn of the century world fairs including a superb sound and light show. “Le musée des Arts Forains” is a tribute to the 19th century funfair and the Théâtre de Verdure exhibits splendid gardens.
The museum has many historical funfair games that have entertained generations of adults and children alike. My favourite was the Parisian Waiter Race in which each waiter is moved by rolling balls into holes, complete with running commentary.
The Parisian Waiter Race:
There are outside exhibits too and, this being an open-house day, it wouldn’t be complete without food …
… and, of course, street music.
The Street Musicians:
And I couldn’t end without mentioning the fabulous costumes on display, some of which were once to be seen in that other Parisian palace of fun, the Folies-Bergère.
I wish everyone a Happy New Year and, if you’re in Paris, I thoroughly recommend a visit to the Musée des Arts Forains which you can find at:
53 Avenue des Terroirs de France, 75012 Paris
Phone for réservations: 01 43 40 16 22
Métro: Cour Saint-Émilion – Line 14
Le Musée des Égouts de Paris
ONE MIGHT BE FORGIVEN for thinking that exploring the sewers of Paris is rather a bizarre way to spend an afternoon. On the contrary, it’s fascinating … if a little malodorous.
Entrance to Le Musée des Égouts de Paris
The gateway into this subterranean world is on the Quai d’Orsay in the 7th arrondissement next to the Pont d’Alma.
The Sounds in the Boutique:
Many people have written about the sewers of Paris but few have done it better than Victor Hugo …
“Paris has another Paris under herself; a Paris of sewers; which has its streets, its crossings, its squares, its blind alleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is slime, minus the human form.”
(Les Miserables, Jean Valjean; Book II, ch.I)
And then further on …
Let the reader imagine Paris lifted off like a cover, the subterranean net-work of sewers, from a bird’s eye view, will outline on the banks a species of large branch grafted on the river. On the right bank, the belt sewer will form the trunk of this branch, the secondary ducts will form the branches, and those without exit the twigs.
This figure is but a summary one and half exact, the right angle, which is the customary angle of this species of subterranean ramifications, being very rare in vegetation.
A more accurate image of this strange geometrical plan can be formed by supposing that one is viewing some eccentric oriental alphabet, as intricate as a thicket, against a background of shadows, and the misshapen letters should be welded one to another in apparent confusion, and as at haphazard, now by their angles, again by their extremities.
(Les Miserables, Jean Valjean; Book II, ch.II)
The ‘belt sewer’ to which Hugo refers was built on the Right Bank of la Seine in the time of Louis XIV but the Left Bank was not so lucky, there the river Biévre was used as their sewer.
Pierre Emmanuel Bruneseau was the Inspector of Works for the City of Paris and in 1805 he set about exploring and mapping the ancient and ageing sewer system. Victor Hugo was a friend of Bruneseau and he wrote that, “Nothing could equal the horror of this old, waste crypt, the digestive apparatus of Babylon.” When he finished the work in 1812 Bruneseau he was hailed as “intrepid” and the “Christopher Columbus of the cess-pool”.
Galerie Bruneseau
The Sounds in the Galerie Bruneseau:
By the middle of the nineteenth-century, Baron Haussmann was not only transforming Second Empire Paris above ground, his reach had also extended below ground. In March 1855 he appointed Eugène Belgrand, a French engineer, as Director of Water and Sewers of Paris.
Eugène Belgrand
Belgrand embarked on an ambitious project. The tunnels he designed were intended to be clean, easily accessible, and substantially larger than the previous Parisian underground. Under his guidance, Paris’s sewer system expanded fourfold between 1852 and 1869. He also addressed the city’s fresh water needs, constructing a system of aqueducts that nearly doubled the amount of water available per person per day and quadrupled the number of homes with running water.
Galerie Belgrand
In recognition of his work, Belgrand’s name is one of seventy-two names engraved on the Eiffel Tower and the main gallery of le Musée des Égouts is also named after him, as is a street in Paris.
The Sounds in the Galerie Belgrand:
The Parisian sewers mirror the streets above. Each sewer “street” has its own blue and white enamel street sign and the outflow of each building is identified by its real street number.
One of the displays in the museum that attracts a great deal of attention is this giant iron ball. The sewers are regularly cleaned using spheres like this, just smaller than the system’s tunnels. The build up of water pressure behind the ball forces it through the tunnel network until it emerges somewhere downstream pushing a mass of filthy sludge.
The Parisian sewers have always fascinated tourists and they were first opened to the public during the Exposition Universelle of 1867. At that time, they stretched for 600 km underneath the city. Today, that has been extended to 2,100 km. Every day, 1.2 million cubic metres of water pass through the system. The sewer system not only handles drinkable and non-drinkable water but it’s also home to telecommunication cables and traffic-light management cables.
It’s worth remembering that this section of the Paris sewers may be a museum but it’s also a working sewer and the dominant sounds of the museum are the sounds of sewage water passing under one’s feet!
Perhaps Victor Hugo should have the last word …
The sewer is the conscience of the city. Everything there converges and confronts everything else. In that livid spot there are shades, but there are no longer any secrets. Each thing bears its true form, or at least, its definitive form. The mass of filth has this in its favour, that it is not a liar. Ingenuousness has taken refuge there. The mask of Basil is to be found there, but one beholds its cardboard and its strings and the inside as well as the outside, and it is accentuated by honest mud. Scapin’s false nose is its next-door neighbour. All the uncleannesses of civilization, once past their use, fall into this trench of truth, where the immense social sliding ends. They are there engulfed, but they display themselves there. This mixture is a confession. There, no more false appearances, no plastering over is possible, filth removes its shirt, absolute denudation puts to the rout all illusions and mirages, there is nothing more except what really exists, presenting the sinister form of that which is coming to an end. There, the bottom of a bottle indicates drunkenness, a basket-handle tells a tale of domesticity; there the core of an apple which has entertained literary opinions becomes an apple-core once more; the effigy on the big sou becomes frankly covered with verdigris, Caiphas’ spittle meets Falstaff’s puking, the louis-d’or which comes from the gaming-house jostles the nail whence hangs the rope’s end of the suicide. A livid foetus rolls along, enveloped in the spangles which danced at the Opera last Shrove-Tuesday, a cap which has pronounced judgment on men wallows beside a mass of rottenness which was formerly Margoton’s petticoat; it is more than fraternization, it is equivalent to addressing each other as thou. All which was formerly rouged is washed free. The last veil is torn away. A sewer is a cynic. It tells everything.
Musée National Eugène Delacroix
TUCKED AWAY IN A little courtyard just off the rue de Furstenberg in the 6th arrondissement is the Musée National Eugène Delacroix or the Musée Delacroix as it’s usually known.
The museum is quite an intimate place housed as it is in what was Delacroix’s apartment where he spent the last six years of his life from December 1857 until his death in August 1863. He moved here because it was conveniently close to the Eglise Saint-Sulpice where, despite his failing health, he was working on his frescos in the Chapelle des Saints-Anges.
Eugène Delacroix
After Delacroix’s death, the apartment was let to various tenants until it was suggested that the studio should be demolished to make way for a garage. It was then that the Société des Amis d’Eugène Delacroix was formed to prevent the destruction of the studio and to provide for and maintain the premises and to promote Delacroix’s work. In 1952, the building was put up for sale and the society, unable to acquire the premises, gave its collection to the French State in order to secure it and to create a museum which eventually became the Eugène Delacroix National Museum.
Inside the Apartment:
Today, the Museum comprises part of Delacroix’s original apartment, his studio and a garden. We know from his journal and letters that Delacroix was happy here:
“My lodgings are decidedly charming (…). Woke up the next day to see the most delightful sunshine on the houses opposite my window. The view of my little garden and the cheerful appearance of my studio always fill me with pleasure.”
(Journal, December 28, 1857).
Delacroix’s Studio
Inside the Studio:
Delacroix’s Studio – Inside
The Museum’s collection is displayed in both Delacroix’s apartment and in his studio and it comprises paintings, drawings, lithographs, autograph works, and some personal objects, including some magnificent souvenirs of his trip to Morocco in 1832. Some works by his friends, Paul Huet, Léon Riesener, and Richard Parkes Bonington, are also featured. The collection is regularly added to with new works acquired through the combined efforts of the Louvre and the Société des Amis du Musée Eugène-Delacroix.
Delacroix’s Studio – Inside
I made this visit to the museum on a beautiful summer’s day. There were some other people there as well but I was lucky enough to have the studio and the garden practically to myself. While sitting in the garden I could quite see why Delacroix found this such a delightful place. I walked from the garden up the wooden steps to the near empty studio and I was fascinated by the sounds and the seemingly extra loud click of my camera as I took the photographs for this blog.
The Musée Delacroix really is a delightful place and it’s well worth a visit.
What you need to know …
Musée National Eugène Delacroix : 6 rue de Furstenberg, 75006 Paris: Tél. : +33 (0)1 44 41 86 50
Getting there :
Métro : Saint-Germain-des-Prés (ligne 4), Mabillon (ligne 10)
Bus : 39, 63, 70, 86, 95, 96
The museum is open daily except Tuesday, 9:30 am to 5 pm.
Full ticket price : €5
Closed on January 1, May 1 and December 25.
Eugène Atget Exhibition at the Musée Carnavalet
AS THE VERY SUCCESSFUL Bernice Abbott exhibition comes to a close in the Jeu de Paume, an exhibition of the work of the man who inspired her, Eugène Atget, opens in the Musée Carnavalet. I went along to see it and was enthralled by it.
Listening to the pictures:
Atget is somewhat of an enigma. Today he is the most celebrated of all the photographers of Vieux Paris, Old Paris, but when he died in 1927 scarcely anyone had heard of him.
Eugène Atget photographed by Bernice Abbott in 1927
He was born in 1857 in modest circumstances in Libourne in the Gironde. As a young man he seemed to fail at everything he turned his hand to. He tried acting, soldiering and painting but failed at all three. His only success was to meet and to marry Valentine Delafosse-Compagnon, an actress who was devoted to him.
Atget and Valentine moved to Paris and around 1890, in order to make a living, he took up photography. Initially he produced study material for artists, images of trees, flowers and various objects for artists to incorporate into their compositions. It was towards the end of the 1890’s that he changed direction and set out to make a systematic photographic record of Paris. He photographed everything – the streets, the shops fronts, the tradesmen, the interiors and architectural details – he captured every aspect of Vieux Paris.
Atget worked hard. Every day was spent on the streets of Paris laden with cumbersome equipment, a bellows camera, glass plates in plate holders, a focusing cloth, a lens case and a wooden tripod. He eschewed the new flexible negatives that had become available which made life easier; he preferred to remain faithful to his old equipment and old habits. He travelled everywhere by bus or Metro carrying all his equipment.
In Atget’s world, photography was not only hard work it was really quite technical too. He used an 18 x 24 cm plate camera with a rectilinear lens. This is a lens, still in use today, that ensures that the vertical lines of buildings always remain vertical. He liked to work in the early morning because he preferred the light at that time and this resulted in lots of photographs with quite eerie empty streets and ghostly people.
Virtually all the Atget photographs we see today are albumen prints. The paper was sold impregnated with whipped and salted egg white which the photographer soaked in a bath of silver nitrate. Sensitised and dried, the paper was laid in the printing frame with the glass negative and exposed to sunlight until an image appeared, then fixed and toned with a salt of gold.
But it is not for his technical mastery that Atget will be remembered. It is rather for his day in day out unrelenting work recording the face of Paris that was constantly changing. He was not interested in Haussmann’s Paris – rich, grand, pretentious – but in a picturesque section of a wall that was on the point of collapsing, or in any touching or unexpected detail. Although his technique belongs to the nineteenth-century, his vision belongs firmly with us today.
On show at the exhibition are of some of Atget’s most well know photographs along with some pictures that have never been exhibited before.
I recommend this exhibition as a ‘must see’ for anyone with an interest in this wonderful city.
The exhibition EUGÈNE ATGET, PARIS runs from 25th April to 29th July 2012 at:
Musée Carnavalet
23, rue de Sévigné
75003 Paris
Tél. : 01 44 59 58 58
Open every day from 10 h to 18 h except Mondays and public holidays.
Tarif: 7 euros
Nearest Metro: Saint-Paul; Line 1
Radio: Ouvrez Grand Vos Oreilles – A New Exhibition
I AM OLD ENOUGH TO remember the ‘Golden Age’ of radio, the days when radio was more popular than television and many years before the internet and social media took control of our lives. I was then, and still am, a huge fan of radio.
In conjunction with Radio France and l’Institut national de l’audiovisuel, the Musée des arts et metiers celebrates the history of radio broadcasting in a new exhibition opening tomorrow.
Radio: Ouvrez Grand Vos Oreilles! or, roughly translated, Radio: Listen Up! is a fascinating exhibition which, as the name suggests, is as much about listening as seeing. As well as the collection of documents, domestic radio receivers and sound recorders, including a wonderful collection of Nagra field recorders, the history of radio is also told with archive sounds.
Some of the archive sounds at the exhibition:
French radio grew from very humble beginnings. At Christmas in 1921, an early radio enthusiast huddled round a homemade crystal set may have been lucky enough to detect a signal transmitted from the Tour Eiffel. In the ninety years since then, radio has evolved to embrace changes in technology, changes in society, political upheavals and even war.
In today’s multimedia world, radio still holds its place in broadcasting information, culture and public debate. Long may it continue!
Radio: Ouvrez Grand Vos Oreilles! runs from 28th February to 2nd September 2012.
Here are some of the exhibits on show:
And here is the collection of Nagras:
A Nagra II (1953)
From L to R: Nagra III (1963) Nagra SN (1970) Nagra E (1985)
Nagra E (1985)
Nagra ARES C
Nagra ARES
Information:
The exhibition is at :
Musée Arts et Métiers, 60, rue Réaumur; 75003 Paris: Tel: 01 53 01 82 00
Opening times: Tuesday to Sunday inclusive from 10 h to 18 h. Thursday 10 h to 21 h 30
Closed: Mondays and 1st May.
Tickets: 5,50 euros; Reduced Tarif : 3,50 euros
Nearest Métro: Arts-et-Metiers (Lines 3 & 11) or Réaumur-Sébastopol (Line 4)
A Soundwalk in the Musée Carnavalet
I am always experimenting with sound. The sounds that appear on this blog are relatively short and that seems to work … up to a point. Sometimes though, I feel that these “sound bites” don’t do justice to the sounds that I’ve recorded. In a world dominated by the 24 hour news cycle, the 20 second sound bite seems to be all important. And I seem to have fallen into the same trap, crediting my audience with a minimum attention span. For this post, I have decided to take a different tack.
Some time ago, I made a post about the creaking wooden floor in the Musée Carnavalet. After listening to those sounds again today, I realised that all the sounds I recorded in the Musée had much more to say than just the creaking wooden floor. So I have decided to present my ‘soundwalk’ through the Musée Carnavalet as it happened. I have taken the three pieces I recorded in there and added them together. It adds up to a sound piece that is a little over ten minutes long. I think it gives a much better impression of the Musée than just the wooden floor. What do you think?
I have added some pictures to give you a visual feel of the place but it is the sounds that tell the story.
A soundwalk in the Musée Carnavalet:
Beautiful Objects – Creaking Sounds
IN APRIL I MADE a blog piece about the Musée Carnavalet in which I featured the sound of its creaking wooden floor. Echoes of that piece returned recently when I went to the Musée National de Céramique at Sèvres, a suburb of Paris.
The Musée National de Céramique is one of two national treasures on this site. Hidden from view behind the museum is the other, the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres – the still very active Sèvres porcelain factory.
Production of Sèvres porcelain began on this site in 1756 after the original factory, founded in 1738 in the Chateau de Vincennes, ran into financial trouble and had to be bailed out by its biggest customer, Louis XV. Louis stepped in and secured the factory as Royal property and it has remained Royal and, from the time of the Revolution, national property ever since.
Louis XV bestowed the name Manufacture Royale de la Porcelaine de France on the factory and introduced the famous double L monogram as the factory mark. It was with this Royal connection that Sèvres porcelain became the French porcelain of royalty and the royal porcelain of France.
The Sèvres factory’s early work was made from soft paste porcelain, a material notoriously tricky to work with and more expensive than the other competing hard paste porcelains of Germany and England. In 1768, deposits of kaolin, the white clay essential in making hard paste porcelain, were discovered in Limoge. With this vital ingredient the Sèvres factory was able to produce hard paste porcelain as well and compete with factories like Meissen on equal terms.
Sèvres porcelain is renowned for its exceptional glazes and deep background colours – royal blue (bleu de roi), turquoise (bleu celeste), pea green, and pink (rose Pompadour).
The sounds inside the museum:
Alexandre Brongniart was responsible for creating the Musée National de Céramique. He became the director of the Sèvres factory in 1800 and for the next forty-seven years the factory continued to evolve and prosper under his guidance. His idea was to create a museum to collect and study all fine ceramics not just those from the Sèvres factory. Today, the museum has a collection of around 50,000 objects from around the world about 5,000 of which were manufactured at Sèvres.
Walking round this museum is an absolute delight; some of the objects on display are just breathtaking. There is a small charge to get in (it’s closed on Tuesdays), but it’s well worth a visit – you get to see some of the finest ceramics in the world and, as a bonus, you get to hear the wonderful sounds of the creaking wooden floor.
How to get there:
On the Transilien:
The nearest Transilien station is Sèvres – Rive Gauche then it’s a five-minute walk to the museum.
On the Metro:
The nearest Metro station is Pont de Sèvres on Line 9 and then it’s a five-minute walk to the museum.
Musée Carnavalet – and Extraordinary Sounds
SOME TIME AGO I was commissioned by a broadcasting organisation to record some very specific street sounds of Paris. They sent me a recording brief and when I read it I discovered that amongst the many other sounds they wanted, I was being asked to make a recording inside the Musée Carnavalet in the rue de Sévigné.
I had mixed feelings about this. The Musée Carnavalet is a museum I know well and visit often … but what on earth is there to record in a museum that could possibly be of interest to an international broadcasting company – and to me for that matter?
The Musée Carnavalet is an absolute gem. It is a museum dedicated to the city of Paris and entry is free. It occupies both the former Hôtel Carnavalet and the former Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau. The notorious socialite, Madame de Sévigné lived there from 1677 until her death in 1696 and so it was in her shadow that I entered the museum to embark upon my task.
This proved to be an interesting experience. On my previous visits to this museum I had been engrossed with the exhibits, looking at them and reading the texts associated with them, trying to understand them and putting them into context. The history of the Paris fascinates me and so my visits have always been enjoyable and I have come away feeling that I know much more about this wonderful city.
But this visit was different. I was working, hunting for sounds – the sounds that characterise this museum, the sounds that distinguish this museum from any other museum.
Sounds Inside the Musée Carnavalet:
Seek and ye shall find! In my experience, the distinguishing sounds are always there – it’s just a matter of perseverance, the thrill of the chase and finding the quarry.
And here it was – a creaky wooden floor.
This floor was laid by craftsmen who would have ensured that it was inch perfect and totally silent. Madame de Sévigné would have tiptoed across this floor oblivious to the fact that that it was even there. But today, it lives and breathes. Age has taken its toll, the cracks have appeared and we are left with a wonderful sound legacy.
For me, this wooden floor and its sound is just as much a part of the history of Paris as the exhibits that surround it in the Musée Carnavalet.
Recording the Past
IT WAS CREATED BY Father Grégoire in 1794 as a “dépôt des inventions neuves et utiles” – a warehouse for new and useful inventions.
Housed in the former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs in rue Réaumur in the 3rd arrondissement, the Musée des Arts et Metier houses part of the collection of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers.
The museum has over 3,000 scientific and technical inventions on display ranging from an astrolabe dating from 1567, to the original Foucault’s pendulum, which demonstrates that the earth really does rotate, to a Cray 2 super computer and lots more.
The museum is arranged in seven categories – Scientific Instruments, Materials, Construction, Communication, Energy, Mechanics and Transportation.
Being a lover of sound, I am always particularly fascinated by the Communications gallery, which begins with the printing of the written word and continues through to a communications satellite. Sound and vision are featured with a collection of early telephones, early televisions, early film cameras and projectors together with early sound reproduction devices.
Ambient sound inside the Communications gallery including a creaky wooden floor:
Tape recorders are represented but, this being a French museum, all the recorders are French – so no historic Nagras feature here unfortunately. The one shown above is from the early 1960’s.
Those shown below are from the 1950’s.
Photographing these objects behind glass in a bright, sunlit, room doesn’t show them at their best but even so, the pictures still excite me when I look at them.
Of particular interest to me was this 1950’s magnetic wire recorder.
And let’s not forget the microphones …
I can’t help wondering how many sounds these devices have recorded and what stories they could tell.
One of the features of the Musée des Arts et Métiers that I enjoy is that there are always lots of wide-eyed children keen to explore, to learn and to have fun. In the Communications gallery a group were enjoying a magic lantern show – but if it’s magic you want, then the Théâtre des Automates is the place to be.
Sound inside the Théâtre des Automates:
The Théâtre des Automates is a side gallery in the museum full of musical clocks and automatons all exquisitely made and some very rare. While I was in there recently a demonstrator from the museum was explaining the exhibits to a group of children. Her enthusiasm was absolutely infectious.
I certainly recommend a visit to this museum.
