The Zone

An Alternative History of Paris

Justinien Tribillon

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Hardback

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English

Verso
01 October 2024

History; European history; Social theory; Urban & municipal planning

If you want to understand Paris today you need to go beyond the palaces and boulevards and discover the Perif. In The Zone, Justinien Tribillon takes the reader on a walk around the Parisian edgelands. He shows how the city should be read from the outside inwards.

How can the history of a ring road tell the history of a city? Post-war Paris is the story of the Periferique, constructed in the aftermath of Word War Two to modernise the city. The ring road started as a dream of a new modern metropolis but soon became a dividing line: between inner and outer cities; between the bourgeois centre and the immigrant outskirts. Here the dividing line of the city, and of the nation, soon found their form within the liminal banlieu.

The Zone is a subject for urbanists everywhere who are interested in social housing, social engineering, the consequences of immigration and riots. This book is The City of Quartz for Parisians. The site of dreams as well as the realities of La Haine, the Zone so often misunderstood, is show to be the best way to understand modern Paris, and even France itself.

By: Justinien Tribillon
Imprint: Verso
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 300g
ISBN: 9781804294048
ISBN 10: 1804294047
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 01 October 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Justinien Tribillon is an urbanist, freelance writer and editor. He co-founded, edited and published Migrant Journal (2016–2019), and Concrete and Ink: Storytelling and the Future of Architecture (2021, nai010). He has also contributed to Flaneur, Algae Review, The Architectural Review, The Guardian, MONU, and Magnum among others. He gained his doctorate at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London and is also a tutor in urban studies at UCL and have been a guest critic in architecture at Central Saint Martins, the Cardiff School of Architecture, Columbia University, HEAD Geneve, and the Bartlett School of Architecture.

Reviews for The Zone: An Alternative History of Paris

"Shows how to read the recent history of Paris from its edge towards its center. How do the complicated conditions in the banlieue shape life for the Paris of tourists, monuments and bourgeois amenities? This book is innovative in its methods and absorbing in its analysis. More than this, Justinien Tribillon has worked out a way to understand other cities from the outside in -- RICHARD SENNETT author of The Performer An indispensable guide to the real Paris, The Zone offers a succinct but comprehensive urban and social history laying bare the politics of class, race and planning that have shaped the impoverished environment and marginalised communities of the capital's banlieue. -- JOHN BOUGHTON author of Municipal Dreams This captivating book admirably challenges the constructed myths about Paris and the banlieue. It dismantles the fabricated oppositions between the two by scrutinizing the spaces, politics and voices of the Zone. The book is a remarkable examination and a groundbreaking critique of ""the most unknown yet quintessentially Parisian space"" -- SAMIA HENNI author of Architecture of Counterrevolution Fascinating ... it is by pushing us to think about the cultural biases and politics of urban infrastructure that The Zone hits its mark. -- Stephen W. Sawyer * Times Literary Supplement *"