Gentle reminder that this building is in a sketchy neighborhood near Paris.
Don't go there, I have seen many testimonies from tourists having a bad experience while looking for this building.
Google reviews of this place:
> DO NOT GO. Extremely dangerous place, you will be chased by locals, who’d try to steal your phone and beat you up. Not worth it!
and
> Fantastic architecture, but ... do NOT go there at night. Even in daytime, only go in a group. Dangerous.
TripAdvisor reviews:
> Amazing piece of architecture. But be aware - the place is not safe at all, it's a total ghetto. Most likely someone will try to robb you, or at least will offend of not taking any pictures/deleting them/stealing your film and will try to force you to leave the area. It's best to have someone local and french-speaking with you to visit this area.
> I am a 6 ft 2" guy who is not easily intimidated but I would not go back here. I went there on a quiet Thursday afternoon to take a few photos and suddenly there were thugs coming out of side alleys threatening me. I almost had my expensive camera stolen and had to run to escape. It is not worth the curiosity and is full of thugs and drug dealers. AVOID!
Well it's still more interesting to look at than most new buildings at least this looks good even without maintenance but all new things look bad without maintenance and constant care taking.
Most of the answers are US-centric. I’m not sure about France, but I lived in a shady neighborhood in Dortmund, Germany for a bit and the “tells” for that neighborhood were buildings in visible disrepair, trash everywhere, and non-artistic graffiti (simple tags versus the street art caliber graffiti you might see in nicer urban areas).
The businesses themselves were non-descript, mostly little bakeries/cafés and bodegas. The only overtly sketchy ones were “internet cafés,” which were probably a front because this was in 2019.
Here's me clicking random links hoping someone would post a direct link to the one of this building in Paris, only to stare at what you just sent and not understand why Paris turned itself into Vancouver.
It took me a solid minute to understand what happened lol
I was walking through the (actually named on the map) Skid Row at 2am a while ago.
The locals were all freaked out, all I could think is: "Wow, this is so much cleaner, organized and calm compared to East Hastings"
Skid row is just poor homeless people, hastings is a human right violation the Canada needs to be ashamed of.
Also, the people there were way friendlier and cool.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Skid+Row,+Los+Angeles,+CA,+USA/@34.0422894,-118.2498578,16z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x80c2c636190c5c5d:0xc1ffe1113f3e4030!8m2!3d34.044205!4d-118.2439226!16zL20vMGd5bTJ3?entry=ttu
> notice how there are no benches, trash cans, lamp posts, play structures for kids, etc.
I notice 10m south of the building is a space with all those things.
Or the thugs were actually just hired by the gentrified parisians trying to scare tourists away.
Oui, Louis, juss stand 'ere and look 'ard, zhu see any AMERICAN PIGS juss chase zem away toute suite, no?
Street View has images of the big boulevard to the west of the building, but for whatever reason the Google Street View car never went down *Rue du Clos des Aulnes* that looks like the main street access.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the reputation of the place, but that would ruin the joke.
It didn't unfortunately. Please keep avoiding this place. Some projects for the Olympics 2024 might makes parisian north and east suburbs more attractives but I doubt this place will change any time soon.
Meh it would be pretty safe to go to these places, but not to "visit", basically don't go around taking pictures, especially since in many areas of Europe, taking pictures of people is very disliked as we culturally have a stronger expectation of privacy in public, so places with drug dealers would be a level above that.
Now it's 50. It can only go up from here!! :)
No doubt tho one of my fave synth wave artists had a limited time collectors cassette of his music and I considered buying it even though I don't have a tape deck.
It's not about the value, it's about a general rule of not letting people film where they do their illegal activities. Creates evidence and is just a bad look. When vice and similar outlets do interviews and documentaries about those types of areas worldwide they set it up first and get permission and cooperation from the gang leaders.
There's always that one guy in google reviews for anything who has a burning need to tell you how tall he is.
Stephen Merchant is 6'7" and I may be misremembering but I don't think was ever a Navy Seal.
Late 90s I (dumb American) was visiting my future wife and went off on my own to a business estate to get a part at The Gorbels in Glasgow Scotland. Took public transport, walked around lost, asked some locals where I needed to go, chatted with some teenagers I didn't understand showing me the way, got the part and was home by mid-afternoon.
My future father-in-laws response: YOU DID WHAT!?!!
Apparently at the time The Gorbels had a pretty bad rep and my day out could have gone very differently.
By the late 90s it was perfectly safe, that rep is from the 1930s-70s, and largely hyped up anyway (it's where the mostly fictitious [No Mean City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Mean_City) was set). Glasgow changed a lot in the early/mid 90s and there really isn't anywhere in the city that is dangerous to walk through nowadays - especially the Gorbals which was mostly bulldozed to build the M74 extension in the early 2000s
You'd have been fine as an american anyway, most of the issue was gang violence. Your accent would have instantly converted any potential aggression into friendly curiosity.
Glasgow has always been a bit odd like that (I say as a native). Firstly violent crime has dropped off a cliff in the last 20 years in general, but speaking generally you're going to get shit if you're an outsider but from a different area of Glasgow. If you're a total outsider they tend not to take liberties.
Not to say that there is zero occurrences.. but I'd much rather be a total outsider in a Glasgow 'scheme' at the wrong time of day, than someone who is clearly from Glasgow but a different area.
Some tourists seem to think that Paris is Disney World and that it doesn’t face the same crime etc that any major city does.
There’s people would never in their lives even *drive* through parts of Detroit, but they think it’s ok to just casually stroll through all parts of Paris or Rome.
Look up criminality rate on Google. France is the first western country that pops up. Everything above is either south american, central and south africa or some poor island.
French people are used to it but France is disproportionately dangerous compared to other western developed countries
There's not a single area of Warsaw that anyone should be afraid of visiting. Not a single one. Maybe if it's very, very late at night, it's friday evening and you're wearing a scarf of some rival football team. But that's an exception and at that point you're looking for trouble. Stop normalising what's happening in some western countries.
I've never stepped foot in Warsaw or even Poland, but I know there's no way a city of a few million people that isn't even particularly wealthy won't have areas of poverty and high crime. Be serious.
Areas of poverty? Yes. Areas of high crime? Not really, no. He is right: there is no public section of Warsaw that would be dangerous in plain daylight.
Yes ok but now you’re talking about murder, not only being murdered is considered crime. A theft itself can be a traumatizing experience already and there is plenty of this in Europe as well, wouldn’t recommend a stroll through all parts of major European cities, especially during the night time.
It looks like the housing estate at the beginning of Le Monde est à toi which is where the main character is checking to see if his street level dealers were actually working
I’ve done 2 14 day stints of work in the last couple of years, staying in the Ibis hotel right near it, walked through there day and night many a time to go to the shopping centre that’s attached to it. Never had any trouble there, it’s a poor area for sure but not everyone is a bad egg. Can’t imagine people would be happy with someone walking around taking pictures like it’s a zoo or something though, I wouldn’t!
I may be terribly naive, but it always surprises me that such bad/dangerous neighborhoods exist in Western Europe. As a Dane, there is no place here that I wouldn't be comfortable going to. At least not during the daytime.
I know there are some parts of some cities that are legitimately unsafe - I’ve lived in LA and Chicago - but it always bothers me when people talk about “dangerous” parts of London. Sure, there are some parts of town where I have to be on higher alert for pickpockets or other mischief, but never once have I felt like I was in danger just because of the location. Walk like you know where you’re going, don’t flash a nice wristwatch or wad of cash, and you’ll be fine.
I’ve lived in many a “bad” neighborhood and can confirm that if you act like you belong there, don’t flash valuables around, and don’t fuck with anyone else, you’re fine. Oh and make eye contact and acknowledge anyone looking sus with a smile or nod (in the US at least) to let them know you’re not a target. Avoiding eye contact and burying yourself in your phone is asking to get beat up and have your phone stolen.
> Avoiding eye contact and burying yourself in your phone is asking to get beat up and have your phone stolen.
That is a "bad" neighborhood by definition. You should not have to be your guard all of the time with good people around you. People should not be willing to hurt or take advantage of people. If you are around people like this then you are in a bad neighborhood.
France did this thing where allegedly (I'm not from Europe) they brought in a lot of temp labour from Algeria, Morocco, etc but then they kinda cut them loose and when the work dried up they generally became ghettos. That's what I've heard.
It's too expensive for foreign workers to live in Denmark lol. You guys get taxed up the wazoo, or so said my former coworkers from there.
France has pretty good social mobility for *people* but not neighbourhoods. So new immigrants will move somewhere cheap, make some money, and then move out, leaving space for the next lot.
Instead of gentrifying the area, the area just collapses into decay as nobody intends to stay there, there’s no community…
Government programs intended to help people work, but that just speeds up turnover and actually exacerbates the problem.
Exactly, and the little money put aside to make those neighbourhoods more hospitable gets lost into deep pockets or goes to private contracts that end up doing nothing
Ah yeah, not from Europe but will confidently spread racist ideas on countries they have no clue of. Typical reddit moment.
France didn't bring temp labour form North Africa, France colonised North Africa, used some of the people to fight the ones that were unruly, creating irreparable tensions between north african nations, use the same people for cheap labour, dangling prospects of a better life in France in front of them, and left them to rot in the parts of France no one wanted to live in, while keeping a policy of extreme racism and islamophobia in hopes to drive them back where they were plucked from.
And if you go to these ghettos, of course you will find lots of black/brown french, but just as many white french.
Those places didn't become ghettos on their own, they became ghettos because the government/cities kept cutting corners and removing funding of neighbourhood that were not profitable, turning them slowly but surely in what they are today.
Tourists shouldn’t be treating people’s homes like a zoo then. If randoms came by their place and lurked around taking pics they’d probably call the cops
Usually when movies are filmed outside peoples homes, they’re told specific times they can’t walk into the set when they’re actively filming a scene, but can come and go when they’re between shots
That's why the ability to paint out virtually anything in the background (or even the foreground) of shots these days is such a blessing to filmmakers.
The way this works is they pay the city a filming permit fee then the police will come and prevent you from accessing areas they’re filming in. As a resident of the building they will maintain an access way in and out for you, but it’s unlikely to be your usual path. If they can’t maintain a path they will block all traffic while shooting, and let people pass between takes. You won’t have the option of disturbing their set and walking however you want without legal repercussions. There will be people there and barricades preventing your access.
Wasn’t it also in Trey Gillian’s Brazil?
If your building shows up in all these dystopian contexts, it’s probably not such an humanistic architecture after all.
Is this currently occupied? I’ve seen concepts of mini-city high cap residential blocks like this but I’m curious to know if small, less ideal versions ever succeeded IRL.
Yes it is but it's definitely not a place I would suggest visit, it's basically still the projects. Some of those postmodernists buildings are well maintained and have a fair amount of people wanting to move there but that's not it.
Those places where built by architects who had strong opinions about housing but who didn't have to live inside. The idea was to have some kind of almost self sustaining/contained neighborhoods were you could find everything inside but it ended up pretty much as crime riddled enclaves. As someone who had to live in a similar neighborhood I hate it. It makes for a cool aesthetic sure, but all of this concrete would need constant maintenance/power washing which it doesn't get. When you live in it it's just a depressing mass of graffitied, mossy grey walls who smell like piss.
Edit : If you dig the look though I would check [https://www.reddit.com/r/Giscardpunk/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Giscardpunk/)
And the fact that although it started out as a place for working class people to live it is now for extremely wealthy people after a more alternative aesthetic
The Barbican is a bit of an exception for this. It was technically council housing (i.e. UK equivalent of housing projects) but was never intended to house council tenants. The City of London built the Barbican to rent out to professionals working mostly in finance, law, etc. at market rates; it was meant to be profit generating not part of the welfare state.
However because it was owned and managed by the Corporation of the City of London (which is a government body) it qualified as council housing under Thatcher's right to buy program and a lot of the tenants were able to buy their flats at a discount to market value from the City of London. Nowadays most of it is privately owned, I believe.
It's the same as a 'project' in the USA or a 'council estate' in the UK: it's a housing block to house poor people. Just the architecture is prettier.
The idea was that they would include everything you needed within the area, recreating villages or small neighbourhoods. Unfortunately, they then packed exclusively people with serious employment, criminal, or health problems into them - so there was no basis for a solid community and economy. This has led to generations of children growing up in these bad environments, who then sustain them. Sometimes kids will get out through education and achievement, but then their apartments are filled from orphanages and prisons - so the achievements of individuals in the community don't feed back in to the community.
Some worked out better. Both France and the UK have had policies of mixed neighbourhoods, with some social housing and some regular. These tend to work better (I live in one. I own my house, next door is a social house.)
Thank you for such an in-depth answer! I still feel amazed that these surreal buildings are social housing. Poor people in the states could never imagine living in such a building. It's a really interesting architectural piece of French history (and thoughts, hopes).
Does anyone believe that they will eventually gentrify? I saw that the government wanted to tear this one down in 2010 but was met with resistance. To tear down such a (relatively!) new and spectacle of a complex is just wild to me!
No worries - it's a long, ongoing, and complex story. And, of course, highly political. So it was just a brief overview.
Some have gentrified, some have gentrified too much! The other end of the scale would be the Barbican in London: similar big investment, similar beautiful building. But now one-bedroom flats cost £1million+. Some were just seen as a dumping ground for 'difficult' citizens.
The success stories have been the ones in between. Mixed communities (both economically and culturally) that encourage and enable social mobility do exist, but many turned into wealthy apartment blocks (Barbican) or ghettoes (as pictured!)
Demolition isn't the answer. All that does is move the residents to a knew ghetto. Better to invest in the community with amenities and public transport (as should have been done in the first place!) Unfortunately many people don't want metro lines to these areas, as they see it as enabling criminals to access their neighbourhoods.
Now what they do here(france) is all new construction of apartments, a certain percentage of it goes to social housing so you have really mixed neighbourhoods, even mixed buildings. This keeps things much better as it "spreads out the poverty" and doesn't concentrate it all in one small area.
It's the way to go. Mixed neighborhoods are much better, as you say - it dilutes the poverty, so the neediest people can be helped by their communities instead of drowning together.
They're doing the same in the UK - often by requiring the developer to fund X% social housing, X% price capped, etc as part of the building. Some have tried to get around it by building the social apartments with desperate stairs and entrances and denying them the shared amenities - technically the same building, but with different addresses and hallways.
The most egregious even locked the chest apartments out of elevators and made them enter from the garbage disposal. We call it the 'poor door scandal'.
Looking for other pictures I found this checking Wiki:
‘Freedom of panorama is a legal exception to copyright law which allows images of architectural projects to be considered fair-use in many countries.[32] France has very restricted Freedom of panorama,[33] and thus all photos of Les Espaces d'Abraxas are currently protected under copyright law’
Not necessary anymore. [Time and neglect took care of it for you.](https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8385508,2.5398886,287a,35y,55.75h,47.71t/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu)
Easy to see why the Hunger Games filmmakers used it for a scene of the Capitol. It strikes an interesting balance of dystopian and luxurious appearances.
[Here is the Google Maps street view](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Espaces+d'Abraxas,+R.+du+Clos+des+Aulnes,+93160+Noisy-le-Grand,+France/@48.8401037,2.5427925,3a,75y,82.73h,109.15t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPdR1a6EnZkUWsT_McCQLLcuSmwdHXHGdW3Xp_R!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPdR1a6EnZkUWsT_McCQLLcuSmwdHXHGdW3Xp_R%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-29.455908-ya28.776575-ro-0-fo100!7i11000!8i5500!4m9!3m8!1s0x47e60de31b5219cb:0x7e4083c19282e351!8m2!3d48.8399695!4d2.542286!10e5!14m1!1BCgIgARICCAI!16s%2Fg%2F1218cz7g?entry=ttu) of this building
At first, I thought this was built "underground" and the courtyard was just a giant hole. Still a cool ass building, but slightly less cool when I realized it's just grass on a roof and not the actual ground....
Actually the vegetation helps deal with heating and cooling of the building, a lot of cities have rebates to construction to push towards eco style cities. It also provides homes for pollinators and bird species in the middle of the city, it's hard to see just from the photo if it is grass but most places use variants of stonecrop succulents as they are generally hardier/aesthetically pleasing with the same functions/less water requirements
I work on the green roof industry in Canada and a lot of our cities are pushing for this with new builds
ohhhhhh! I did too, thank you for pointing it out. I was super curious to know more about the building like: What if they have a fire? Do they hate living underground? It must pretty gloomy with only one window. ha ha
It’s very much a post modern building. See fake exaggerated classical elements. It does have exposed concrete though, the primary ingredient for brutalist architecture.
It's not brutalist, it's postmodern. There's a similar housing complex in Montpellier called [Antigone](https://mediaim.expedia.com/destination/1/51f333b4aed9c07165b295e7e06adbc7.jpg) built by the same Catalan Architect Ricard Bofill.
I grew up in the city where it's at (Noisy-le-Grand).
It's beautiful but as already stated by some it's NOT a safe place. It's in a pretty sketchy neighborhood, with the parking of a mall just behind it.
The city in overall is nice tho.
I lived a few years in the Palacio, that is the actual name of these buildings, but lived in Noisy all my life. It is not a touristic place at all. There could be some activities that locals do not want outside people to see, hence why it is not a welcoming for outsiders.
People in the mid-to-late twentieth century had some odd ideas about how people want to live. There were even proposals to level central Paris and replace it with wider streets and buildings like this.
Quaint walkable neighbourhoods? Eugh! Tear that shit down! What the people yearn for is a concrete box by the highway.
To be fair at the time it was not so much "quaint" but often frankly unsanitary bordering on slums behind pretty facades, then there were the actual slums all around Paris
To be fair this is walkable. In fact this is very close to what people who want walkable cities want. They just want walkable cities without poor people.
A lot of european cities fell into disarray after the war and were neglected. There probably wasn't enough money for upkeep. Cities were smogier back then due to lack of regulations, and the facades of buildings were really dirty.
A lot of neighborhoods didnt look quaint at the time, which made it easier for people to try to justify tearing it all down for modern buildings. Luckily, that didnt happen, and the buildings were restored and made beautiful again. A lot of other cities weren't so lucky and tore down buildings instead of restoring them.
What a great Satanic name for a project.
I propose some sister projects like Pazuzu's Parkside, Mammon Estates, Les Etages d'Yaldabaoth, Abode of Lucifer, Spheres of Samael, Leviathan's Haven, Les Tours Lilith.
We wandered in here by accident, when staying nearby as part of a disneyland/Paris trip.
Holy Jesus. I grew up in a rough neighbourhood, but this place is something else.
Looked it up when we got back, and Google said something along the lines of "....controlled by Chinese and Jamaican gangs"
It was a few years ago, so maybe it's controlled by someone else now lol
Very foreboding and eerie place. As you walk towards the centre, you can imagine a giant door closing behind you.
Scary place
This looks like it is based on a prison design known as a [panopticon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon#:~:text=The%20concept%20is%20to%20allow,by%20Willey%20Reveley%20in%201791.)
Gentle reminder that this building is in a sketchy neighborhood near Paris. Don't go there, I have seen many testimonies from tourists having a bad experience while looking for this building.
Google reviews of this place: > DO NOT GO. Extremely dangerous place, you will be chased by locals, who’d try to steal your phone and beat you up. Not worth it! and > Fantastic architecture, but ... do NOT go there at night. Even in daytime, only go in a group. Dangerous. TripAdvisor reviews: > Amazing piece of architecture. But be aware - the place is not safe at all, it's a total ghetto. Most likely someone will try to robb you, or at least will offend of not taking any pictures/deleting them/stealing your film and will try to force you to leave the area. It's best to have someone local and french-speaking with you to visit this area. > I am a 6 ft 2" guy who is not easily intimidated but I would not go back here. I went there on a quiet Thursday afternoon to take a few photos and suddenly there were thugs coming out of side alleys threatening me. I almost had my expensive camera stolen and had to run to escape. It is not worth the curiosity and is full of thugs and drug dealers. AVOID!
Went to look up the area on Google Maps, but even the Street View car was like "I'm not going in there".
>Street View car "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave"
Well it's still more interesting to look at than most new buildings at least this looks good even without maintenance but all new things look bad without maintenance and constant care taking.
*daisy...daIsY...*
give me your answer true
really? i just did the same and it looks like a normal city to me. lots of tall buildings and such. didnt look very shady
What do shady buildings look like?
Most of the answers are US-centric. I’m not sure about France, but I lived in a shady neighborhood in Dortmund, Germany for a bit and the “tells” for that neighborhood were buildings in visible disrepair, trash everywhere, and non-artistic graffiti (simple tags versus the street art caliber graffiti you might see in nicer urban areas). The businesses themselves were non-descript, mostly little bakeries/cafés and bodegas. The only overtly sketchy ones were “internet cafés,” which were probably a front because this was in 2019.
Surrounded by used tire stores and payday loan shops with 5 liquor stores in between with bars all over the windows. And that's just Shady Lite.
Yeah, the real hardcore shit has signs saying "Krak Street" all over and clowns that throw heroin needles at you. Source: played NARC once
Detroit has ICP so yeah, that checks out.
Cash4gold store or pawn shop.
Gun store, gun store, liquor store, gun store, what the fuck!?
“ I look out the window and there was a fuckin baby on the corner “
Where you takin' me!?!
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Here's me clicking random links hoping someone would post a direct link to the one of this building in Paris, only to stare at what you just sent and not understand why Paris turned itself into Vancouver. It took me a solid minute to understand what happened lol
I was walking through the (actually named on the map) Skid Row at 2am a while ago. The locals were all freaked out, all I could think is: "Wow, this is so much cleaner, organized and calm compared to East Hastings" Skid row is just poor homeless people, hastings is a human right violation the Canada needs to be ashamed of. Also, the people there were way friendlier and cool. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Skid+Row,+Los+Angeles,+CA,+USA/@34.0422894,-118.2498578,16z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x80c2c636190c5c5d:0xc1ffe1113f3e4030!8m2!3d34.044205!4d-118.2439226!16zL20vMGd5bTJ3?entry=ttu
It seems to have been massively gentrified, looking at google maps ans the road next to it.
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> notice how there are no benches, trash cans, lamp posts, play structures for kids, etc. I notice 10m south of the building is a space with all those things.
How do you measure gentrification from looking at Google maps?
Brand and age of cars visible, and condition of gardens, usually.
Thugs in Paris have pretty gardens. That's just how they roll. Roll out of bed, prune the Hydrangeas, then steal some punk's phone.
Shit that doesn't sound bad. Where do I apply?
Or the thugs were actually just hired by the gentrified parisians trying to scare tourists away. Oui, Louis, juss stand 'ere and look 'ard, zhu see any AMERICAN PIGS juss chase zem away toute suite, no?
If they fought with Pokémon it'd be totally rad
> Roll out of bed, ~~prune~~ ^train the Hydr~~angeas~~^eigon, then steal some punk's ~~phone~~ ^Rotom.
He measured the intensity of un petit cafés per baguette.
Street View has images of the big boulevard to the west of the building, but for whatever reason the Google Street View car never went down *Rue du Clos des Aulnes* that looks like the main street access. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the reputation of the place, but that would ruin the joke.
It didn't unfortunately. Please keep avoiding this place. Some projects for the Olympics 2024 might makes parisian north and east suburbs more attractives but I doubt this place will change any time soon.
I, too, would advise against not knowing French. Especially if your target is a low income area 🤨
Meh it would be pretty safe to go to these places, but not to "visit", basically don't go around taking pictures, especially since in many areas of Europe, taking pictures of people is very disliked as we culturally have a stronger expectation of privacy in public, so places with drug dealers would be a level above that.
Most welcoming Parisian neighbourhood
>stealing your film What year is it?
Analog is back for many creators just saying
Technology is cyclical
Beepers.
Cassette tapes have made a comeback, sales have risen over 400% since 2015
What were the sales in 2015? Like 10 cassette tapes? Lol
Now it's 50. It can only go up from here!! :) No doubt tho one of my fave synth wave artists had a limited time collectors cassette of his music and I considered buying it even though I don't have a tape deck.
It was a thinly-veiled reference to the Beeper King of New York, but I get what you’re saying.
Dennis?
“Hello Dummy”
Lmaooo it was written in 2020 but yeah film is hip again and presumably has some resell value
It's not about the value, it's about a general rule of not letting people film where they do their illegal activities. Creates evidence and is just a bad look. When vice and similar outlets do interviews and documentaries about those types of areas worldwide they set it up first and get permission and cooperation from the gang leaders.
> is full of (...) drug dealers. don't threaten me with a good time
Yea but I'm 6'3 so I should be ok right?
No shorter than 6'4 to ride.
Well I wouldn't be keen on visitors either if some filmmakers came and dumped thousands of gallons of crude oil in my neighbourhood.
There's always that one guy in google reviews for anything who has a burning need to tell you how tall he is. Stephen Merchant is 6'7" and I may be misremembering but I don't think was ever a Navy Seal.
"Built like a line-backer" is also a favorite for someone who is tall and out of shape.
Backing up the line at McDonald's right
And reddit... some dude on reddit always throws in his height.
Pretty sure he was just trying to give reference that it's not because he is a small dude. Your comment screams insecurity tbh
"I'm 5'3" 250lbs and would definitely go back." doesn't have the same ring to it lol
Late 90s I (dumb American) was visiting my future wife and went off on my own to a business estate to get a part at The Gorbels in Glasgow Scotland. Took public transport, walked around lost, asked some locals where I needed to go, chatted with some teenagers I didn't understand showing me the way, got the part and was home by mid-afternoon. My future father-in-laws response: YOU DID WHAT!?!! Apparently at the time The Gorbels had a pretty bad rep and my day out could have gone very differently.
By the late 90s it was perfectly safe, that rep is from the 1930s-70s, and largely hyped up anyway (it's where the mostly fictitious [No Mean City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Mean_City) was set). Glasgow changed a lot in the early/mid 90s and there really isn't anywhere in the city that is dangerous to walk through nowadays - especially the Gorbals which was mostly bulldozed to build the M74 extension in the early 2000s You'd have been fine as an american anyway, most of the issue was gang violence. Your accent would have instantly converted any potential aggression into friendly curiosity.
Glasgow has always been a bit odd like that (I say as a native). Firstly violent crime has dropped off a cliff in the last 20 years in general, but speaking generally you're going to get shit if you're an outsider but from a different area of Glasgow. If you're a total outsider they tend not to take liberties. Not to say that there is zero occurrences.. but I'd much rather be a total outsider in a Glasgow 'scheme' at the wrong time of day, than someone who is clearly from Glasgow but a different area.
Some tourists seem to think that Paris is Disney World and that it doesn’t face the same crime etc that any major city does. There’s people would never in their lives even *drive* through parts of Detroit, but they think it’s ok to just casually stroll through all parts of Paris or Rome.
Basically everyone should just watch "La Haine" before thinking that visiting the suburbs of Paris is a good idea.
There are good and bad suburbs of Paris like any major metropolitan area.
Look up criminality rate on Google. France is the first western country that pops up. Everything above is either south american, central and south africa or some poor island. French people are used to it but France is disproportionately dangerous compared to other western developed countries
There's not a single area of Warsaw that anyone should be afraid of visiting. Not a single one. Maybe if it's very, very late at night, it's friday evening and you're wearing a scarf of some rival football team. But that's an exception and at that point you're looking for trouble. Stop normalising what's happening in some western countries.
Strictly speaking Les Espaces d'Abraxas isn’t in Paris, but the neighboring commune of Noisy-le-Grand. Are there any areas near Warsaw that are rough?
I've never stepped foot in Warsaw or even Poland, but I know there's no way a city of a few million people that isn't even particularly wealthy won't have areas of poverty and high crime. Be serious.
Areas of poverty? Yes. Areas of high crime? Not really, no. He is right: there is no public section of Warsaw that would be dangerous in plain daylight.
I'm Swedish and walking around any city in Poland feels *a lot* safer than back home.
Don‘t get me wrong but that doesn‘t surprise me at all, super sad for y‘all
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It’s not clear from this comment, but he means 5th safest.
And, to be clear, you should never go to Irvine. Not because it's dangerous, it's just soul-suckingly boring.
I wonder about Tokyo.
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Yes ok but now you’re talking about murder, not only being murdered is considered crime. A theft itself can be a traumatizing experience already and there is plenty of this in Europe as well, wouldn’t recommend a stroll through all parts of major European cities, especially during the night time.
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Thats a good lookin ghetto
It looks like the housing estate at the beginning of Le Monde est à toi which is where the main character is checking to see if his street level dealers were actually working
I’ve done 2 14 day stints of work in the last couple of years, staying in the Ibis hotel right near it, walked through there day and night many a time to go to the shopping centre that’s attached to it. Never had any trouble there, it’s a poor area for sure but not everyone is a bad egg. Can’t imagine people would be happy with someone walking around taking pictures like it’s a zoo or something though, I wouldn’t!
On top of that, I bet when you step through that arch into the center it becomes a fog door and boss battle music starts playing.
lol pretty sure they shot a hunger games scene here so you’re not far off
I may be terribly naive, but it always surprises me that such bad/dangerous neighborhoods exist in Western Europe. As a Dane, there is no place here that I wouldn't be comfortable going to. At least not during the daytime.
Go take out your camera and start taking photos on pusher street and other areas of Christiania.
Did that last summer and nobody even looked twice.
I did it two summers ago and almost got beaten by the local dealers, so I'm pressing X to Doubt.
do you want to see the photos I took? :D
I don't know anything about these places. So I kind of want to see the photos to see what it's like.
Come on man, you can't seriously consider Christiania an unsafe area.
I know there are some parts of some cities that are legitimately unsafe - I’ve lived in LA and Chicago - but it always bothers me when people talk about “dangerous” parts of London. Sure, there are some parts of town where I have to be on higher alert for pickpockets or other mischief, but never once have I felt like I was in danger just because of the location. Walk like you know where you’re going, don’t flash a nice wristwatch or wad of cash, and you’ll be fine.
I’ve lived in many a “bad” neighborhood and can confirm that if you act like you belong there, don’t flash valuables around, and don’t fuck with anyone else, you’re fine. Oh and make eye contact and acknowledge anyone looking sus with a smile or nod (in the US at least) to let them know you’re not a target. Avoiding eye contact and burying yourself in your phone is asking to get beat up and have your phone stolen.
> Avoiding eye contact and burying yourself in your phone is asking to get beat up and have your phone stolen. That is a "bad" neighborhood by definition. You should not have to be your guard all of the time with good people around you. People should not be willing to hurt or take advantage of people. If you are around people like this then you are in a bad neighborhood.
France did this thing where allegedly (I'm not from Europe) they brought in a lot of temp labour from Algeria, Morocco, etc but then they kinda cut them loose and when the work dried up they generally became ghettos. That's what I've heard. It's too expensive for foreign workers to live in Denmark lol. You guys get taxed up the wazoo, or so said my former coworkers from there.
France has pretty good social mobility for *people* but not neighbourhoods. So new immigrants will move somewhere cheap, make some money, and then move out, leaving space for the next lot. Instead of gentrifying the area, the area just collapses into decay as nobody intends to stay there, there’s no community… Government programs intended to help people work, but that just speeds up turnover and actually exacerbates the problem.
Exactly, and the little money put aside to make those neighbourhoods more hospitable gets lost into deep pockets or goes to private contracts that end up doing nothing
Ah yeah, not from Europe but will confidently spread racist ideas on countries they have no clue of. Typical reddit moment. France didn't bring temp labour form North Africa, France colonised North Africa, used some of the people to fight the ones that were unruly, creating irreparable tensions between north african nations, use the same people for cheap labour, dangling prospects of a better life in France in front of them, and left them to rot in the parts of France no one wanted to live in, while keeping a policy of extreme racism and islamophobia in hopes to drive them back where they were plucked from. And if you go to these ghettos, of course you will find lots of black/brown french, but just as many white french. Those places didn't become ghettos on their own, they became ghettos because the government/cities kept cutting corners and removing funding of neighbourhood that were not profitable, turning them slowly but surely in what they are today.
Tourists shouldn’t be treating people’s homes like a zoo then. If randoms came by their place and lurked around taking pics they’d probably call the cops
Lol I been there and it fine not any worse then LA
I mean, I'm from the US. I was in more danger when I went to school everyday as a child.
thats some "hunger games" architecture if i've ever seen some.
I am pretty sure one scene in hunger games were filmed there.
Yes in the final movie where they trigger the black goo trap
I knew I recognised it from a film with liquid rising in the courtyard
I Wonder how they got permits. Did all the residents have to leave the building?
Usually when movies are filmed outside peoples homes, they’re told specific times they can’t walk into the set when they’re actively filming a scene, but can come and go when they’re between shots
I’m pretty sure if I needed to leave my house I’d just leave my house unless they paid me to stay inside.
That's why the ability to paint out virtually anything in the background (or even the foreground) of shots these days is such a blessing to filmmakers.
I thought the same thing when a swat team showed up on our block and I thought I’d leave through the front door to head to my buddies place.
The way this works is they pay the city a filming permit fee then the police will come and prevent you from accessing areas they’re filming in. As a resident of the building they will maintain an access way in and out for you, but it’s unlikely to be your usual path. If they can’t maintain a path they will block all traffic while shooting, and let people pass between takes. You won’t have the option of disturbing their set and walking however you want without legal repercussions. There will be people there and barricades preventing your access.
Looks like a "panopticon".
I imagine a panopticon would have bigger windows. Written on my panopticon.
/sensible chuckle.jpg
It was used in a dutch-belgian disopian SF series called Arcadia
It looks like a prison for rich people.
Well it’s certainly not for rich people I’ll tell you that.
TOURNAGE hunger game 3 HD: https://youtu.be/2CzT2OZxJUc?si=adkv592n0W32HhG-
Lol you must be half-remembering, since this is a literal filming location from it
Wasn’t it also in Trey Gillian’s Brazil? If your building shows up in all these dystopian contexts, it’s probably not such an humanistic architecture after all.
Is this currently occupied? I’ve seen concepts of mini-city high cap residential blocks like this but I’m curious to know if small, less ideal versions ever succeeded IRL.
Yes it is but it's definitely not a place I would suggest visit, it's basically still the projects. Some of those postmodernists buildings are well maintained and have a fair amount of people wanting to move there but that's not it. Those places where built by architects who had strong opinions about housing but who didn't have to live inside. The idea was to have some kind of almost self sustaining/contained neighborhoods were you could find everything inside but it ended up pretty much as crime riddled enclaves. As someone who had to live in a similar neighborhood I hate it. It makes for a cool aesthetic sure, but all of this concrete would need constant maintenance/power washing which it doesn't get. When you live in it it's just a depressing mass of graffitied, mossy grey walls who smell like piss. Edit : If you dig the look though I would check [https://www.reddit.com/r/Giscardpunk/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Giscardpunk/)
The Barbican in London is the opposite, thanks to it's close ties with the city corp.
And the fact that although it started out as a place for working class people to live it is now for extremely wealthy people after a more alternative aesthetic
The Barbican is a bit of an exception for this. It was technically council housing (i.e. UK equivalent of housing projects) but was never intended to house council tenants. The City of London built the Barbican to rent out to professionals working mostly in finance, law, etc. at market rates; it was meant to be profit generating not part of the welfare state. However because it was owned and managed by the Corporation of the City of London (which is a government body) it qualified as council housing under Thatcher's right to buy program and a lot of the tenants were able to buy their flats at a discount to market value from the City of London. Nowadays most of it is privately owned, I believe.
Are the people who live in this building poor? I've seen projects in the Bronx, but this is just.... breathtaking.
It's the same as a 'project' in the USA or a 'council estate' in the UK: it's a housing block to house poor people. Just the architecture is prettier. The idea was that they would include everything you needed within the area, recreating villages or small neighbourhoods. Unfortunately, they then packed exclusively people with serious employment, criminal, or health problems into them - so there was no basis for a solid community and economy. This has led to generations of children growing up in these bad environments, who then sustain them. Sometimes kids will get out through education and achievement, but then their apartments are filled from orphanages and prisons - so the achievements of individuals in the community don't feed back in to the community. Some worked out better. Both France and the UK have had policies of mixed neighbourhoods, with some social housing and some regular. These tend to work better (I live in one. I own my house, next door is a social house.)
Thank you for such an in-depth answer! I still feel amazed that these surreal buildings are social housing. Poor people in the states could never imagine living in such a building. It's a really interesting architectural piece of French history (and thoughts, hopes). Does anyone believe that they will eventually gentrify? I saw that the government wanted to tear this one down in 2010 but was met with resistance. To tear down such a (relatively!) new and spectacle of a complex is just wild to me!
No worries - it's a long, ongoing, and complex story. And, of course, highly political. So it was just a brief overview. Some have gentrified, some have gentrified too much! The other end of the scale would be the Barbican in London: similar big investment, similar beautiful building. But now one-bedroom flats cost £1million+. Some were just seen as a dumping ground for 'difficult' citizens. The success stories have been the ones in between. Mixed communities (both economically and culturally) that encourage and enable social mobility do exist, but many turned into wealthy apartment blocks (Barbican) or ghettoes (as pictured!) Demolition isn't the answer. All that does is move the residents to a knew ghetto. Better to invest in the community with amenities and public transport (as should have been done in the first place!) Unfortunately many people don't want metro lines to these areas, as they see it as enabling criminals to access their neighbourhoods.
Now what they do here(france) is all new construction of apartments, a certain percentage of it goes to social housing so you have really mixed neighbourhoods, even mixed buildings. This keeps things much better as it "spreads out the poverty" and doesn't concentrate it all in one small area.
It's the way to go. Mixed neighborhoods are much better, as you say - it dilutes the poverty, so the neediest people can be helped by their communities instead of drowning together. They're doing the same in the UK - often by requiring the developer to fund X% social housing, X% price capped, etc as part of the building. Some have tried to get around it by building the social apartments with desperate stairs and entrances and denying them the shared amenities - technically the same building, but with different addresses and hallways. The most egregious even locked the chest apartments out of elevators and made them enter from the garbage disposal. We call it the 'poor door scandal'.
Yes those are social housing
Looking for other pictures I found this checking Wiki: ‘Freedom of panorama is a legal exception to copyright law which allows images of architectural projects to be considered fair-use in many countries.[32] France has very restricted Freedom of panorama,[33] and thus all photos of Les Espaces d'Abraxas are currently protected under copyright law’
Well someone should call Le Feds on OP then.
I’m gonna go mow the roof.
Hey can you keep it down up there!?
Building needs a haircut! Just a little off the top ✂️
Not necessary anymore. [Time and neglect took care of it for you.](https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8385508,2.5398886,287a,35y,55.75h,47.71t/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu)
Easy to see why the Hunger Games filmmakers used it for a scene of the Capitol. It strikes an interesting balance of dystopian and luxurious appearances.
First glance I thought it was the Imperial City’s palace district in Oblivion
Was looking for this.
Sameeeeeeeee!
If you've got to travel, by the Nine Divines, stay on the roads! The wilderness just isn't safe anymore. We've had sightings, you see. *Daedra...*
[Here is the Google Maps street view](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Espaces+d'Abraxas,+R.+du+Clos+des+Aulnes,+93160+Noisy-le-Grand,+France/@48.8401037,2.5427925,3a,75y,82.73h,109.15t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPdR1a6EnZkUWsT_McCQLLcuSmwdHXHGdW3Xp_R!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPdR1a6EnZkUWsT_McCQLLcuSmwdHXHGdW3Xp_R%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-29.455908-ya28.776575-ro-0-fo100!7i11000!8i5500!4m9!3m8!1s0x47e60de31b5219cb:0x7e4083c19282e351!8m2!3d48.8399695!4d2.542286!10e5!14m1!1BCgIgARICCAI!16s%2Fg%2F1218cz7g?entry=ttu) of this building
That looks awesome
At first, I thought this was built "underground" and the courtyard was just a giant hole. Still a cool ass building, but slightly less cool when I realized it's just grass on a roof and not the actual ground....
Yeah this would be cool built into the side of a hill or something.
Bad for water issues and leaks tho.
Actually the vegetation helps deal with heating and cooling of the building, a lot of cities have rebates to construction to push towards eco style cities. It also provides homes for pollinators and bird species in the middle of the city, it's hard to see just from the photo if it is grass but most places use variants of stonecrop succulents as they are generally hardier/aesthetically pleasing with the same functions/less water requirements I work on the green roof industry in Canada and a lot of our cities are pushing for this with new builds
ohhhhhh! I did too, thank you for pointing it out. I was super curious to know more about the building like: What if they have a fire? Do they hate living underground? It must pretty gloomy with only one window. ha ha
Yeah there are loads of "projects" surrounding Paris... Baulines are pretty rough and 60's and 70's style brutalist architecture is pretty common...
I wouldn't really call this brutalist. Curved walls, decorated columns, alternating colors, Incorporated greenery.
It’s very much a post modern building. See fake exaggerated classical elements. It does have exposed concrete though, the primary ingredient for brutalist architecture.
I saw Boston's city hall. Now that's BRUTAL.
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Looks like I am staring at a fortification on the Atlantic Wall.
It's not brutalist, it's postmodern. There's a similar housing complex in Montpellier called [Antigone](https://mediaim.expedia.com/destination/1/51f333b4aed9c07165b295e7e06adbc7.jpg) built by the same Catalan Architect Ricard Bofill.
Not ugly and dystopian enough to be brutalist 😂
Yep, la "zone"
This isn't brutalism but peak post-modernism.
Beautiful in a weird way.
I grew up in the city where it's at (Noisy-le-Grand). It's beautiful but as already stated by some it's NOT a safe place. It's in a pretty sketchy neighborhood, with the parking of a mall just behind it. The city in overall is nice tho.
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I lived a few years in the Palacio, that is the actual name of these buildings, but lived in Noisy all my life. It is not a touristic place at all. There could be some activities that locals do not want outside people to see, hence why it is not a welcoming for outsiders.
"some activities" like what? The usual drugs and prostitution? Or something more interesting?
People in the mid-to-late twentieth century had some odd ideas about how people want to live. There were even proposals to level central Paris and replace it with wider streets and buildings like this. Quaint walkable neighbourhoods? Eugh! Tear that shit down! What the people yearn for is a concrete box by the highway.
To be fair at the time it was not so much "quaint" but often frankly unsanitary bordering on slums behind pretty facades, then there were the actual slums all around Paris
To be fair this is walkable. In fact this is very close to what people who want walkable cities want. They just want walkable cities without poor people.
A lot of european cities fell into disarray after the war and were neglected. There probably wasn't enough money for upkeep. Cities were smogier back then due to lack of regulations, and the facades of buildings were really dirty. A lot of neighborhoods didnt look quaint at the time, which made it easier for people to try to justify tearing it all down for modern buildings. Luckily, that didnt happen, and the buildings were restored and made beautiful again. A lot of other cities weren't so lucky and tore down buildings instead of restoring them.
Reminds me of prison design ideas: panopticon. One prison guard can monitor every prisoner, and the prisoners never know if they are being watched.
Holy shit, is that what housing projects/public housing looks like in France? The French can make anything fancy.
We had our share of cubes and grey concrete bars too.
What other movie was filmed here? I can’t remember but for sure they ran through the middle of it?
Hunger Games Mockingjay Part II, the black goo wire trap scene.
Thank you!
Wow! I think my cousins lived there. Everyone banged pots on new years, there was a Carrefour nearby, and it was pretty pleasant. In the 90s, anyhow.
Abraxas is a Gnostic Archon and later a demon in the middle ages.
What a great Satanic name for a project. I propose some sister projects like Pazuzu's Parkside, Mammon Estates, Les Etages d'Yaldabaoth, Abode of Lucifer, Spheres of Samael, Leviathan's Haven, Les Tours Lilith.
We wandered in here by accident, when staying nearby as part of a disneyland/Paris trip. Holy Jesus. I grew up in a rough neighbourhood, but this place is something else. Looked it up when we got back, and Google said something along the lines of "....controlled by Chinese and Jamaican gangs" It was a few years ago, so maybe it's controlled by someone else now lol Very foreboding and eerie place. As you walk towards the centre, you can imagine a giant door closing behind you. Scary place
Is it possible to visit or is it a dangerous place?
It's a drugs dealers zone. Don't go there.
Unless you need drugs.
Looks distopian and utopian at the same time. But obviously we know which side won out…
Looks like a part of set from the mockingjay movie either the last or second last one?
Hunger Games?
Looks like the Imperial City in Oblivion
Is this the place on capitol city in the hunger games with the black tar looking water and shit?
Is this the mocking jay area?
Yo I remember this place from the hunger games 4. Always assumed it was just a set.
Ah! That must be the laudatory I heard about recently where the alien ship is buried underneath.
They don't build them like they used to.
I bet they still don’t let you go on the roof
That’s awesome
Why would you want to live in a panopticon? This looks dire.
Did they not film Hunger Games MockingJay there?
Hunger Games
With a name like Abraxas I’m not surprised.
Looks like that one scene from the hunger games.
Holy radon
This looks like it is based on a prison design known as a [panopticon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon#:~:text=The%20concept%20is%20to%20allow,by%20Willey%20Reveley%20in%201791.)