NatioNal pride / The Museum of Civilisations from Europe and the Mediterranean opened in June new home for the Regional Contemporary Art Fund has been designed by Kengo Kuma. On top of Le Corbusier’s brutalist Cité Radieuse in a southern suburb is a contemporary art centre. A new business zone facing the port is dominated by Zaha Hadid’s 140m-tall tower, noted for its central black stripe and an apparent kink at the base. It is part of a staggering $10 billion investment in the area due to go on for the rest of the decade, bringing homes, offices and public facilities. Turning my back on the ambitious, it was easier to focus on the charm of the old Panier district. Its slim streets were once the maze where criminals could shake off police. Now they are smattered with artists’ showrooms and craft workshops. I followed the Nuit de l’Instant (Night of the Instant) mys-
The panier disTricT was once The maze where criminals shook off The police, buT iTs now smaTTered wiTh arTisT’s showrooms, crafT workshops and vinTage sTores
tery trail that ran earlier this month and found myself first in a tiny studio lined with neon oil paintings and then in a disused bar watching a bleak silent film about Italians to the recorded improvised music of that polymath Vincent Gallo. Walking down the rue de la Caisserie, where Napoleon lived, you can buy artisan glassware, ceramics or vintage clothes. Or you can sit and eat in a square. I got a better sense of the mix of the city from a lunch in the boulevard Dugommier. An old bar, Le Comptoir Dugommier is a workaday and yet cosmopolitan bistro. My salad came
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Open skies / september 2013