Jenny Avenue: [Nanterre, 2001]

Abstract

There still are, at the periphery of urban centers, timeless and fragile places. Beside the growth, life has arranged places of rest. Ageless buildings, alongside roses, hedges protecting privacy, tables that knew the absinthe ... There are also vehicle ponds, rubbish and weeds. The city grows, preceded by letters of expropriation and its attendant hassles, dramas and uprootings. The framework of lifetimes is promised to total and brutal destruction. A site full of life and desire. Men there are free, but they also face danger. Soon, developers will chase them. A space of choice, of freewill, exchange and sharing, respect and civility. An area rare and fragile, which reality will reduce to a memory. Children can do nothing. One day soon, they will go, all turning a page in their lives. The Jenny Avenue in Nanterre seals the border between the suburbian cities of Nanterre and Courbevoie, near la Defence. A property development project in Courbevoie, site of the residence Villapollonia, disrupts the landscape and uses the nanterrian suburban neighborhood. A striking contrast between urban forms and cultures.