It is thirty years since the Périphérique, the last major piece of infrastructure designed for motor traffic in Paris, came into use. The 35 kilometre-long road handles 1.2 million cars a day, bridges the Seine twice, crosses nine railway lines, seventeen Métro lines and 66 roads, connects with five shopping centres, 13 multi-storey car parks and 22 petrol stations and is illuminated by 38,490 light bulbs. The 99 cameras and 324 warning signs are powerless to prevent the 3,000 accidents that take place on it every year. The visual experience it provides the motorist – acceleration, deceleration, the countryside divided up into series of scenes – inspired Paul Virilio to develop the concept of the cinematographic city. But the 'périf' amounts to more than just one million square metres of asphalt; it also generated a complex urban district. The history of how the ring road came into being and what it means to its users and neighbours is the subject of an exhibition at the Pavillon de l'Arsenal and of a book by the group Tomato architectes.*1

The road, which runs precisely along the city boundary, was laid out between 1957 and 1973 on the demolished fortifications of Paris. The wide band of land that had become available as a result was originally intended to remain a green belt, but was slowly but surely developed in a pattern of concentric circles, the first public housing (the 'ceinture rose') sports grounds, the Cité Internationale Universitaire and the Parc d'Expositions at the Porte de Versailles. The remaining space was occupied by the Périphérique, yet in some places the busiest road in France still retains the character of a green belt. Later on stretches of the road, like Porte de Lilas and Porte d'Asnières, were covered and acoustic baffles were erected to protect residents from the noise. It is striking that in chic districts the ring road runs below ground level, but in the poorer, northern half of the city it is raised on piers, so that cars rush by at window level. After the road was handed over, plans were made to double the southern section, which had immediately become jammed, carrying it over a viaduct, or even running it through a tunnel.

Although the Périphérique lends itself to many interpretations, the most common one is negative: it is a road that forms an effective city wall; not for nothing are its intersections called 'gates'. A concrete monster, a source of noise and pollution, gripping the city in a stranglehold. This is what made the paintings of the ring road, exhibited at the end of the 1990s by the artist Gilles Marrey, such an eye-opener. Viaducts, wide railway lines. Tunnels, lit by an eerie orange light. Indeed, as well as flexible connections, the périf offers the motorist an impressive scenic experience.

It also seems to be the place par excellence for an architectural trial of strength. This was entered into by Tomato architectes, founded in 1997 by thirteen architecture students who, even before receiving their diplomas, set up office in a building borrowed from the RATP, in a decayed neighbourhood in Paris. They analysed the ring road which 'is the clearest expression of the structure of the city, and affirms the circle as the abiding definition of Paris'. The group pointed to the complexity of an infrastructure that implies a break with the suburbs, but gives the motorist a clear perception of a large urban unit. It is the zone formed round this road that Tomato calls the 'ville du périphérique'. One of the characteristics of this city is its freedom of architectural expression: the ring road has demanded higher, more varied and more monumental buildings than the rest of Paris. The firm made several proposals to strengthen the position of this district and to break down the barrier created by the road. The architect Yannick Beltrando, for example, suggested filling the intersection at Porte de la Chapelle with a shopping centre, in which the traffic lanes would be embedded, to provide a bridge between the inner city and the suburbs. 'Tomato's starting point,' says Beltrando, 'is that the Périphérique has resulted in one of the region's most striking transformations, creating a unique kind of urbanism. The ring road no longer stands on the periphery but in the centre of the agglomeration, and this central position can still be reinforced.' Such plans run counter to the policy pursued by the City of Paris, which is working on covering over sections of the road as part of its ambition to erase 'mobility architecture' from the cityscape.

The Tomato hypothesis, that the Périférique has brought about unique urban developments, is confirmed by the varied architecture of the Parc de la Villette and Dominique Perrault's Hôtel industriel. Architecture Studio's student flats at Porte de Clignancourt have a black traffic-facing elevation which of necessity consists of a double concrete shell to protect the dwellings from the din. The facade, marked with bright orange stripes, is for hire as a giant billboard. The ring road city, a more or less spontaneous formation, is characterized by these kinds of hard responses, by increases in scale, by the publicity that has become a real feature of the landscape. It is a zone in which people would rather move around than live. The scenery there is wider and more varied, characterized by neon lights, extreme busyness and town planning experiments. A prime example is provided by the history, related by Tomato, of the intersection at Porte de Bagnolet, where building started in 1964. In the middle, between the carriageways, architect Serge Lana had drawn a Métro station, a multi-storey car park, a skating rink and a shopping centre, that took until 1992 to realize. Two towers, the Mercuriales, complete the urban image.

The Périférique plays a key role in the Paris agglomeration, but also leads to a clash of different visions. One such vision takes a moral standpoint, viewing the road as proof of the inability of policymakers to turn traffic space into a satisfying whole. The other says that the infrastructure is a dynamic factor, encouraging urban renewal and original architectural forms, that ignores the intentions of planners and emphasizes the visual experience it provides. An experience that is both meaningful and many-layered and which turns the road into a work of art that provides reliable information about the galloping economic forces of our age and what they do with space. So the Périphérique raises the following question: is the real issue the aesthetics of mobility, or its aestheticization? In the latter case a real, meaningful picture is replaced by the soothing image of the nannied city. It is unlikely that this mighty piece of traffic architecture, that has unintentionally generated the most interesting piece of Paris, will be tamed by noble sentiments of this kind.

© Steven Wassenaar

*1. 'Les 30 ans du Périphérique', Pavillon de l'Arsenal, Paris ; www.pavillon-arsenal.com
Tomato architectes, La ville du Périphérique, Paris (Le Moniteur) 2003, p. 191.