left: We dream of elsewhere An interview of Jean-Paul, resident at the Enfants du Canal Vésale center, 2013. www.perou-parisdelhospitalite.org/ III-laboratory-of-utopias-PC5 map: We live in the city Saint- Jacques, Paris 5th, mapped with Jacques, formerly homeless. This is a near-English translation of his walk: ‘I lived only fifteen days at the Vesalius Street Enfants du Canal before going to the rue Grancey Centre. Very little time to know people... I often go to the cinema Escurial, on the Boulevard de Port- Royal, afternoon or evening, watch action movies. Here in front, the ERDF building, I slept two weeks days in the entrance way. Always after 11pm, sitting with a duvet. Broca, I like the architecture of certain buildings, brick reminds me of the houses in the north where I come from. During the sales, many people throw their old mattresses outside, it’s a time to collect linens, clothing... Rue Saint-Jacques is my street And further on there is my boulevard. I like it, there are plenty of shops, boutiques, flea markets, it is animated. And the lower Seine, in the days when Enfants du Canal was at the Canal Street Observatory, I did my laundry there whenever the second hand washing machines were broken. This place, Alphonse Laveran, at the entrance of the church of Val-de-Grace, I come to read quietly on a bench. There is the fountain, and then the self-service food. Here is the Academy of Fine Arts of the American School. In the window we see the drawing boards... it reminds me of my studies in electro-mechanics, it was industrial design. I cannot stand elevators, subways... I would like to live on the ground floor. I need to see the sky, my window is open even in winter. Here is the Saint-Jacques church, but I go to a church near rue Grancey two or three times a week. I come to Parc du Luxembourg when it is not raining and I have nothing else to do. I look at the statue of Catherine de Medici, there are kiosks and concerts in the summer. They removed the benches beside the statues of the Queens of France. This kiosk used to be a book rental place. I used to go and read in a corner in the shade. Now it is a waffle stand. This square, Avenue de l’Observatoire, has the only free toilet, behind the keeper’s hut. There are also toilets at the public library and hospital emergency to freshen up. There are student parties in the square sometimes. Under the arch of the brick building, there has been a death. I lived before at the CROUS Port Royal, right there on the steps outside the doors, ordered not to obstruct the doors or emergency exits. At the entrance of the Observatoire de Paris, I stayed fifteen days in a tent with a friend. These are the old stables... they have conferences here. Farther on is a monastery and an orphans home. From here on the Place Denfert Rochereau, we see the Busabri Enfants du Canal. There are several squares, one is calm, the other is less so, there are dealers at night. Here behind this trailer, she reads the future. In the third square they play bocce.
courtesy Perou-Paris de l’Hospitalite
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Keywords for PEROU are innovation (abused and overused, nevertheless a still-relevant term), experiment (as a means of response to petrified, impotent, expired solutions offered to the people), independence and freedom . Weak forms, such as alternative housing opportunities, demand new visions, free of the political reluctance and market-driven spatial vision that leads to scarcity and exclusion. Alternative housing opportunities are seen as detrimental from the perspective of regular society: its response is unfriendly public furniture and the erasure of spots that previously offered temporary roofs. These are drastic responses: the military metaphors in the presentation of the project are more than accurate in this context. Overcoming the limits of spatial scarcity is possible and necessary – and the will to implement the solution has to be awakened in the rest of the social and political context. Nothing that so far exists addresses the real needs and problems of those who either decided or accidentally ended up living a vulnerable lifestyle. Opportunities are there, buried under the layers of exclusive law, visions and interests. The chosen projects and a publication will be presented in the Pavillion de l’Arsenal to those in charge of urban planning and housing decisions, aiming for realisation in the forthcoming municipal mandate. The project insists on a linguistic shift, changing the unwanted into extra, degradation into upgrading, misuse into illumination – a vibrant and lively contribution. ~
I have never lived more than four years in the same city.’
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