ABSTRACT
At the extreme eastern end of the Île de la Cité in Paris, behind the chevet of the cathedral of Notre Dame, there is a low concrete mass split in two places by narrow stairs. Descending, you pass between a pair of concrete ‘grindstones’ and arrive at a hard, concrete courtyard, hemmed in by bush-hammered walls. Above, the sky, while ahead you see and hear the Seine rushing past, its waters virtually level with the pavement at one’s feet. This was the scene designed by the French architect Georges-Henri Pingusson (1894-1978) and is his late masterpiece, completed in 1962. It is one of the great brooding and evocative spaces of modern architecture, and conjures up an almost mythical atmosphere, a descent into the underworld.
