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By: Lionel Bitchie
Date: 21st Sep 05
Format: Book
Motivation: Kill twenty minutes dead
What:
Paris Underground
By:
Caroline Archer & Alexandre Parre, Photography by Gilles Tondini.
Where:
Amazon
This extraordinary book takes you into the 117 miles of man-made tunnels and disused quarries underneath the streets of Paris. Created over 400 years ago these labyrinths of limestone were a gathering place for revolutionaries, soldiers, artists, fugitives and secret societies and today are the exploration grounds for illicit travellers.
Paris Underground is full of hundreds of photographs that document the intriguing sculptures, graffiti, paintings and drawings that are hidden amongst the dark, dank walls of the city and that now reflect the influence these ye olde creatives have had on today's urban culture. The works speak the checked past of the city and provide a rich insight from the time of revolution to present day.
This book brings to light the true Parisian underground and may cause you to quit your tunnel-less day job and take up a new life, joining the cataphiles in this unique underground network.