Everyone knows Paris, but did you ever have the chance to travel to France without stopping in the big capital? Earlier in June this year I've made a trip to Burgundy, more precisely I saw the area around the cities of Auxerre, Dijon and Beaune. Of course Burgundy is famous for wine and cheese but these are not the topics I want to talk about here. All three of these cities are special but also they are typically French. All of them are smaller cities with lovely old city centers. Everywhere you can find very old crooked houses from the middle ages, many of them are beautifully restored and maintained. The one thing that really captured my eye this year is the materiality of these city centers. You basically know that you are in France when you start to see all houses built with that very white limestone which provides a certain, very delicate atmosphere when walking up and down the streets. These houses also feel very homogenous, very similar. They share about the same height and width, the size of the windows is similar and the whole facade seems to be made from a certain repertoire of colors, materials and forms. It's a pleasure to explore all these details without getting bored. The streets are still unique, narrow, crooked and very detailed, it's just that the canon of means seems to be limited to a certain amount of well planned and executed parts. This is the first thing about rural, French architecture that I didn't realize so clearly before. read more…