ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN OF LE MARAIS’ QUEER VENUES Current Formation of Identities within the LGBT Community and Territorial Strategies in the Parisian Queer Village
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JADE BÉNÉÏ
Gentrification started when Le Marais - a derelict area since the 18th century - began to be rehabilitated. Legislation on the preservation of architectural heritage (Loi Malraux, 1962) played an important role in the process. Providing financial aid, local investors revitalised the area by renovating properties and developing businesses. Taking advantage of low property prices in central Paris, gay investors pioneered the refurbishment, alongside Jewish and Chinese minorities.1 In 1978, the opening of the area’s first gay bar ‘Le Village’, marked a renewal in gay, French business strategies, the venue operating during daylight hours, without concealing its interior. This cultural shift prompted other gay venues to open within the district, that subsequently and unprecedently attracted an important clientele to the area, in turn prompting the opening of numerous new businesses.2 As a result, property prices in this newly refurbished area began to soar. The following decades in Le Marais were thereby demarcated by the rise of various luxury businesses, their prevalence putting local queer enterprises under increasing economic pressure. Indeed, by 2018, housing prices in Le Marais were the 3rd most expensive in all of Paris.3 In this work, I analyse how relationships between LGBT individuals and the broader community currently shape Le Marais’ built environment. Through an interdisciplinary approach, my work evaluates the role of gay venues and their architectural design features, in conveying cultural and socio-economic changes, forming individual identities through bodily practice. Moreover, this performativity raises the question as to how these venues contribute to LGBT cultural heritage, as their transience starkly contrasts with Le Marais’ historical built environment. Thus, through this work, I describe the evolving materiality of Le Marais’ queer history, with the aim of interrogating