Marais
Coordinates: 48 ° 51 ′ 28 " N , 2 ° 21 ′ 41" E
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The Marais (German: swamp) is a district of Paris on the right, the northern bank of the Seine . It is located east of the Center Georges-Pompidou between the Place de la République and the Place de la Bastille and belongs to both the 3rd and 4th arrondissement .
Location and characteristics
The quarter is bordered by Rue Réaumur and Rue de Bretagne in the north, Boulevard Beaumarchais in the east, the Seine in the south and Rue Beaubourg and Rue du Renard in the west. This former swampy landscape was drained by members of the Templar Order in the 13th century . At that time it was on the outskirts, today in the heart of the city east of the inner city area.
The Marais is a special and very original district of Paris. It survived the Haussmannian modernization efforts of the 19th century, which made the oldest and most splendid Hôtels particuliers , i. H. City palaces of the nobility, next to the crooked houses of the craftsmen, the tall tenement houses next to the settlements of the Knights Templar have survived here.
history
For a long time the Marais was a wetland outside the city limits, its drainage began in the 13th century. In the 14th century, an expanded Paris city wall was built that included the Marais. In the 17th century, the Marais became the preferred residential area of the nobility. This was expelled in the course of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, which heralded the beginning of an architectural decline that was only stopped in 1962 under Charles de Gaulle's Minister of Culture André Malraux .
Identification by Victor Hugo
Observing the historical development of the at times disreputable district, Victor Hugo described the Marais in an unflattering manner in his 1831 Hunchback of Notre Dame :
"Gypsies, runaway monks, bogus students, villains of all nations, such as Spaniards, Italians, Germans, and all religions, Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, idol worshipers, begging during the day, swarming out as robber gangs at night ..."
Attractions
The Center Georges Pompidou, constructed in the early 1970s by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers , forms the border at the western entrance to the Marais . The building is named after the French President Georges Pompidou , on whose initiative it was built, with the Quartier des Halles , the Parisian market halls and the heart of the district being demolished. 300 meters away, the Museum of Jewish Art and History in the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan, built in 1640, has been conveying Jewish culture since 1998 .
One of the most beautiful and oldest squares in Paris, the Place des Vosges , is located in the middle of the Marais. The square, which was called Place Royale until the Revolution , was laid out in 1605 by Henry IV on the site of a horse market. Victor Hugo lived here in house number 6 and Cardinal Richelieu in house number 21.
The Musée de l'Histoire de France , affiliated with the French National Archives, documents the history of France in the extremely magnificent setting of the Hôtel de Soubise , one of the largest city palaces in the Marais district . The focus of the museum is on the formation of the French kingdom and the development of the various institutions of the monarchy. Documents such as the wills of Louis XIV. , Louis XV. and Napoleon are presented, the last letter from Marie Antoinette or Robespierre's arrest warrant, a letter from Richard the Lionheart as well as a letter from Joan of Arc to the residents of Reims dated August 6, 1429.
The synagogue on Rue Pavée , built in 1913 by the architect Hector Guimard , is also worth seeing . This Art Nouveau - synagogue is the only religious building he has designed. On the way from the Rue Vieille du Temple (this is where the Knights Templar once had its seat) to the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois you will pass the Marché Saint Paul , an attractive place where antique and junk shops line up under the porches.
The church of Les Billettes on Rue des Archives, which has been Protestant since 1810, dates back to a monastery in the late 13th century and is reminiscent of an anti-Jewish legend. The current church was built between 1756 and 1758. The Gothic cloister is the only one preserved in Paris.
The Jewish center of Paris
The Marais is the historic center of Jewish life in Paris. Since the 13th century, Jews from East and West have found a home here, despite all expulsions. In the early modern period, the Sephardim , the Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal , formed the majority, but after the French Revolution, particularly devout Jews came from Alsace and Eastern Europe . After numerous Jews had been deported and murdered during the German occupation from 1940 to 1944, Sephardi from North Africa settled again in the 1960s and now make up a large part of the Jewish community in Paris. Two museums in Paris bear witness to the history of the Jews, namely the Shoah Memorial and the Museum of Jewish Art and History Nowhere else in Europe do so many Jews live: 400,000 people belong to the Jewish community in France, almost half of them live in Paris - and most of them still live in the Marais district.
The “father” of the Art Nouveau entrances to the Paris Métro, Hector Guimard (himself married to a Jewish woman, the painter Adeline Oppenheim from New York), is the architect of the Agudath-Hakehilot Synagogue , where he combines the playful aesthetics of Art Nouveau with the severity of Orthodox Judaism . The head of the Orthodox Jews of Paris, a small but committed minority, resides in the immediate vicinity. It is not uncommon to find a sushi bar or pizzeria with a kashrut certificate from the Beth Din de Paris , the Grand Rabbinate of Paris, which monitors compliance with purity regulations. The Rue des Rosiers (named after rose bushes that no longer exist today) and its side streets are called the Pletzl or Le Pletzl in Yiddish . In the Rue Geoffrey l'Asnier is the memorial to the Unknown Jewish Martyr.
From 1989 to 2006, the small special interest channel Télévision Française Juive , the first Jewish television broadcaster in Europe , was committed to political education and better coexistence between Jews, Christians, Muslims and those of different faiths . The station had deliberately chosen its headquarters in the Rue des Rosiers , where an exciting mix of the street wrote the best stories and provided broadcasts.
See also: École des Hospitalières Saint-Gervais
Goldenberg restaurant
The closure of the Goldenberg restaurant at 7 rue des Rosiers in Paris in 2007 marked the end of a Parisian institution. Since 1948, Jo Goldenberg's famous Jewish (albeit not kosher) restaurant, which was attached to a deli, had drawn Jews and non-Jews from around the world. On August 9, 1982, the restaurant was bombed, killing six and injuring 22. The attack is attributed to the Abu Nidal organization .
Others
In the Marais, around the Rue de la Verrerie , in the parallel streets Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie and Rue des Blancs Manteaux , a large part of the Parisian gay scene has established itself.
The Hôtel Duret-de-Chevry on rue du Parc-Royal has been home to the German Historical Institute Paris since 1994 .
literature
- Hilja Droste, Thorsten Droste : Paris, walks through the metropolis on the Seine; Squares and boulevards, churches and museums , DuMont, Ostfildern 2012, ISBN 978-3-7701-6622-0 , pp. 140ff. (= DuMont art travel guide ).
- Niklaus Meienberg : The Blaring of the Gallic Rooster: Reports from France , Limmat , Zurich 1987, ISBN 978-3-85791-123-1 .
Web links
- Musee d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaisme (Museum of Jewish Art and History)
- Current and old photographs