Paris has a real-life scifi urban utopia in its midst and it was the set of 2015’s Mockingjay, the last film of the Hunger Games series. What you see when you look at Espaces Abraxus and Arenes de Picasso is something that might seem like it comes from a type of dsytopian future in which people are assigned places to live, people to live with, and lives that are less than fulfilling but are deemed good enough for them. But in truth the space is quite impressive from an architectural standpoint and is fully capable of housing many upon many tenants. The near downfall of the place however was that the architect designed the space in the manner that’s shown with the idea that it would draw people from different classes together to form a type of community that could be socially sustaining and thus create a separate environment all its own. When that didn’t happen it was deemed a failure.
The site was actually slated to be torn down in 2006 but when the tenants heard this they refused to be pushed out of their homes and instead pushed back by organizing community get-togethers and parties that could bring people closer together. In short order almost everyone knew one another and were far closer than they’d ever been. That’s kept the place going this far and seems like it could continue to do so as long as people are willing to make the effort. There are communities throughout the world that are closer together than this and don’t seem to find the time to really get to know one another, so this effort that has been made and is still being made is something special.
The look of this place is just awesome as it gives itself over to wonder and awe very easily. The architect had a seriously grand design in mind when they were creating this place and managed to build something quite unique back in the 1970’s. Whether they are still around or not it would be interesting to know what they might think about how the tenants are reacting to the idea that their home was going to be torn down. It seems as though they had no idea that the idea of the experiment was to bring people together, but once their homes were threatened they pulled together anyway in order to get to know each other and band with one another over the preservation of their home. I’ve seen entire neighborhoods in which only a couple of people knew one another and that could have been ripped up and redone without a single person complaining, so this is kind of heartwarming really.
In Mockingjay it was just about the end of the line for the heroes if you ever watched the show since they were being herded by traps throughout their entire run towards the capital. In that movie this scene looked quite hopeless, but in real life it looks like somewhere quite pleasant to live.
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