A project of the peace movement between the wars, the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris was designed to promote understanding between peoples. Not easy today, even if students strive to maintain “the dream of a global society,” observes this German journalist who went to explore it in December, when the war in Iran had not yet broken out.
In the south of Paris, shortly before the ring road, a magnificent park shelters a political utopia. Large lawn dotted with protected yews, path lined with lime trees crossing the site, small forest, lots of greenery, even in this wet and gray winter period. A few joggers are doing their laps.
Several buildings form splashes of color around the park. Some resemble English manors, others are reminiscent of Asian temples. A facade is decorated with Arabic calligraphy. And over there, these five floors of colorful loggias: when could this architecture have been modern?
The park and buildings make up the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, a spectacular small city that welcomes more than 7,000 students from around the world. Manasi, for example, who came from India to study fashion. Or the Beninese Daniel, who is writing his doctoral thesis in museum sciences and lives in a building with Afghans, Russians, Malians and French people. “There are few places like this in the world… he declares.
Yoav the Israeli is doing a master’s degree in physics at the Sorbonne. He is on the same floor as Miriam the German, who has been at the City for three years. The latter confided:
“Since I
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Article source
The time (Hambourg)
This major newspaper of information and political analysis, created in 1946 by the British occupation force and established in Hamburg, belongs to the Holtzbrinck group. Sharp and demanding, tolerant and liberal, it appears every Thursday and is distinguished by its sophisticated design and iconography.
Installé à Berlin, le site Zeit Online possède sa propre rédaction.
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