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 meredith tenhoor 9 decree, design, exhibit, consume making modern markets in france, 1953–1979 ◾ M e r e D i t h t e n h O O r P aris, 1969: a battle raged in neighborhoods, newspapers, and government offices about the future of Parisian urbanism. the wholesale food markets at les halles, located in the geographic and symbolic heart of the city since the eleventh century, were about to move to the southern suburb of rungis, and nothing had been chosen to fill the void they would leave behind. liberating Paris from the spatially demanding food trade would not just unclog traffic in the city’s formerly paralyzed central district; it would also create an important opportunity to modernize Paris. But not everyone desired modernization. small-scale food vendors worried they would go out of business. nocturnal flâneurs wondered where they would catch a glimpse of picturesque Paris or nurse bowls of onion soup at 3 a.m. and journalists, architects, artists, curators, and politicians fretted over the planned destruction of architect victor Baltard’s beloved nineteenth-century iron and glass market buildings. modernization nonetheless won out: Baltard’s pavilions were bulldozed when the critics went on their august vacation in 1971, leaving behind a gaping hole in the center of the city. ground broke on President georges Pompidou’s cultural center in the market’s former parking lot at the plateau Beaubourg in 1972, and the hole at les halles was filled by the forum des halles shopping center and a regional train hub in 1979. even before the colored ductwork on the centre Pompidou was complete, commentators critiqued the city’s changes . Paris had cut out not only its stomach but its heart. the centre Pompidou was an elite cultural “machine” that was no substitute for the worker-oriented market commonly known as the “louvre of the People.” Paris had not just been modernized; it became postmodern: filled with shopping malls, transit centers, 216  decree, design, eXhiBit, consume and tourists rather than family-owned businesses, gastronomy, and nineteenthcentury architecture. critics from Jean Baudrillard to guy debord to albert meister railed against the sterile culture of image and spectacle symbolized by the changes in central Paris, claiming that the french state had replaced a visceral and vivacious culture of les halles marketplaces.1 this wide-ranging criticism of the transfer hit enough of a nerve that even today Parisians and casual historians mourn the loss of the markets at les halles; indeed, their lost authenticity is somehow supposed to return the site, which is currently being replanned at the behest of the Parisian mayor.2 the nostalgia that many feel for the old les halles might not only be for the urban energy and architectural distinction of the district, but for the lost worlds of work and commerce that les halles seemed to exemplify. for the transfer from les halles to rungis not only changed the urban fabric of central Paris, it also touched the pocketbooks, bellies, and work lives of residents of the entire Parisian metropolitan region. the les halles–rungis transfer was part of a nationwide attempt to generate new forms of post–world war ii french consumerism: the logic of politicians who promoted it was that simplifying the process of food distribution would lead to lower food prices, which would then leave room in household budgets for the purchase of nonessential consumer goods, which would in turn fuel the postwar economy. indeed, the transfer occurred on the eve of an economic era that is often called post-fordist: one in which growth is driven heavily by culture, leisure, and tourism; one in which labor is service work that mobilizes social connections and competencies more often than “material” or industrial labor; and one in which it is increasingly difficult to imagine a space outside of the capitalist marketplace for nonproductive activities.3 the “postmodernization” of central Paris was a symptom of a larger “post-fordization” of the political economy of everyday life. while the les halles–rungis transfer is not in any way solely responsible for these widespread social and economic changes, it is a case where the government attempted to plan economic modernization through both regulation and territorial transformation. its architects had to design not just a functional wholesale market, but a physical model for an economic and social system that did not yet exist. together, architects and administrators planned a market that not only was highly efficient but one that also might...

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