Walter Benjamin made arcades the symbol of a Parisian way of life, the essence of modernity. Nearly one hundred years after he started working on the monumental collection of texts, eventually published posthumously in 1982 as Arcades Project (the German title being Das Passagen-Werk, "the book of passages"), these luminous passages in Baron Haussmann's urban design have become part of Paris' folklore. In a city left to the mercy of luxury giants' appetite, where some districts feel increasingly like a shopping mall during sales, arcades are the aged remnants of a mythologized past.
A new type of arcade has been developing without much notice or fanfare, one which could well be a sign of the times: the courtyards and open-air spaces that were initially designed for the exclusive enjoyment of the occupants of the buildings bordering them. Gradually but steadily, sections of these areas are now being returned to the city and its residents.
In the capital, new constructions face numerous restrictions: the rigidity of the périphérique ring road, the bioclimatic local urban masterplan that limits building heights to 37 meters, the heritage protection supervised by Architectes des Bâtiments de France (France's architectural review board) and the Old Paris Commission, and the hyperactivity of local residents and organizations...
Consequently, Paris City Hall's stated ambition to increase the share of public housing from 25% to 40% by 2035 relies heavily on transforming older buildings, in this case, disused offices that represent an especially valuable resource. The courtyards and gardens attached to them are being reimagined in light of present needs.
In the 7th arrondissement, the conversion of the Ministry of the Armed Forces' former offices into housing was organized around the central empty space they encircled. "We were in Paris' quietest building: the headquarters of the Great Silent One ...," explained François Brugel, the commissioner of the project that he designed in collaboration with the agency H2O, which was awarded the Equerre d'Argent Prize in 2023. "We wanted to make it a quasi-public place, as open as possible to the city!"
The place was made up of a beautiful 18th-century stone building and a 1960s concrete building, typical of a kind of functionalism radically free of all affectation. In other words, two buildings with nothing in common other than their address, 10 rue Saint-Dominique, and the inner courtyard uniting them. They chose to build a third building in the middle to accommodate the sports center required by the program, in addition to its 254 social housing units and a daycare.
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