Today I sat the final exam for what has probably been the most enjoyable course that I have studied during the last four years, the ambitiously titled “History of Construction”. The course took place not at Les Ponts, but at the neighbouring architecture school EAMLV
The lecturer expertly lead us through building sites from Egypt to Millau and described building materials as diverse as granite and linoleum. But what got me really excited about the course was being in a room full of real live architects. All those asymmetrical haircuts, those interesting glasses. From the outset I fully expected to see my own haircut lose its symmetry and that my sight should deteriorate sufficiently for me to make a purchase at the opticians. I imagined myself sitting among the trendies, smoking cigarettes with my new friends (smoking is clearly an initiation rite).
In the end, it didn’t quite work out like that. On the plus side, the lectures were excellent and really quite inspiring: it constantly reminded me of all that stuff about why I went into engineering. I have to say that unlike my other exams here, this one wasn’t such a hit and miss affair. But lets look at the bad side… I left the architecture school for the last time looking less trendy than I did at the outset (I got dressed in the dark this morning), my eyesight is just as good as it was before, and I haven’t managed to give up “not smoking”. As for new architect friends, well there was this one guy who I was chummy with, who used to say hi and stuff, but when it came to saying goodbye, both of us knew there was no need to exchange emails. All I could muster when shaking his hand was a feeble “on se revoit sur un chantier un jour” (see you one day on a building site). Disaster.
When Haussmann was busy tearing down and rebuilding large swathes of Paris, he wasn’t doing it all by himself. His chief engineer was this fellow, M Alphand. In this portrait by Alfred Roll, he is standing on the building site of the Petit Palais in 1888. Appropriately, it is now hanging in pride of place in the Petit Palais. As far as our history of art lecturer is aware, it is in the only portrait of an engineer in Paris.
The Petit Palais is an interesting place, although not as immediately so from a structural point of view as its glass-domed big brother opposite, the Grand Palais. This mock classical building has frescoes on its ceiling that, first time round, failed to draw my attention. On a second lap however, I was invited to take a closer look at these paintings. Sure, there were the cherubs floating around, but the clouds in which they were flying were not in fact clouds, but smoke rising from factories in one corner, and a steam train in the other. Progress!
Filed under: Life in Paris
We have just had the first of two earthquake engineering exams, and this one was hard! Revision for the exam was doubly frustrating: firstly because the key topics that we had been told would be on the list had been well hidden among three dense handouts; secondly because of all the twenty topics on the list, only two came up. Still, I am at least pleased that I didn’t waste too much time revising last night as none of the subjects that I would have studied came up anyway. This may be a reactionary comment admittedly, but I seriously advise anyone thinking of coming here next year to think twice about studying this subject.
This exam has been preventing me thinking about the rest of the term and now that it is over things are looking more rosy! Next week Dan and I will be sitting the History of Construction exam at the architecture school. I don’t think I have ever looked forward to an exam more: we will be asked to draw and annotate sketches of buildings ranging from the pyramids to the Milleau Viaduct. I do this kind of thing on holiday!
More exams like this please, and less involving a calculator.
Filed under: Life in Paris
Today I developped the film that I shot while in the south of France over Christmas. It is magical watching the images appear out of nothing in the developping fluid. I was really happy with this set and I hope to be printing some full sized images tomorrow rather than just a contact sheet. ENPC paid for the film and for all the developping chemicals, and now that I know who holds the key to the dark room, there is no stopping me…
