You can say what you want about Sarkozy, but he has a thing for grand visions about the future, sometimes for the bad I guess, but also for the good. Last year he gave ten architects the mission to create vision of a new Grand Paris – a vision of a future green and environmentally friendly, high tech, comfortable, healthy and wealthy Paris. Altough I get the chills when people talk about “building away poverty”- where do the poor people go then? Do they disappear if they cannot afford living anywhere?
One has a reason to get weary about such expressions, knowing how Sarkozy at one stage wanted to clear the streets of the rioting suburban youth with high-pressure water cannons before he became president and married Bruno…
But some of the ideas are very inspiring, more green, something which they call “active forests”, fast trains, etc. The visual presentations are nice, check out four of them in this Swedish paper here Här är det nya, gröna Paris – DN and read more here Le Grand Paris exhibition – e-architect.co.uk.
spiritual empowerment 