Saint Quentin – The Art Deco city of France

Join me on a tour, of the charming city of Saint Quentin, in Northern France. Almost destroyed by bombs during the First World War, the subsequent rebuilding took place during the Art Deco era in the 1920’s. It is a city that is prized for its unique blend of medieval, classical French and Art Deco architecture.

Hi everybody, or should I say bonjour. Just waiting for you to uh to come through. Nothing as yet, but hopefully you can you can see and indeed of course hear me. Hello Susan. It’s good to see you on you come through. So give us a shout out when you can see and of course hear me. That would be great. Hi Susan. Hope you’re well today. Little bit of breeze. So, bonjourish. Either John or Jean today. Apparently, I was told this. I don’t know if it’s true, but apparently in every language, in every culture, there’s a version of the name John. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Like John, Johan, Ian, Sha, the kind of European examples, but apparently much further a field as well. Hello Leslie. Hello, uh, KCM from Nashville. And uh guess what? We’ve only got Mrs. John with us today. Yes, we have. Yes, we have. And uh and so looking forward to giving you a snipple. Snippet. A snipple. Uh Lori, we’re we haven’t relocated. Uh we are in the process of buying a property uh here in this V city. Um but no, we’re still be living in the UK, but it’s a renovation project, so it’s going to be over a few years. Hello Fran, thank you for doing the calendar listing. And Ronnie is here and um and every welcome uh Bianu to San Quenta in Picad. We’re in the north of France. Uh we are couple hours drive from Paris. Bit quick hour and a quarter on the train and we are in a in an area that is defined uh of course by L Grand the first war. So um well we’re in the process of buying it Lori but it’s a long drawn out process in France. Purchasing a property uh takes months and months and months uh and is is more complicated of course if you’re not French. So yes we we are in the process of buying but we won’t have bought. Uh so so we are what is it news ash? So we are buying rather than news ash we have bought. So, um, we’re in the process of buying. Excuse my dodgy French. There’s people on here that are much better French than me. Do pick me up on it and, uh, and let me know, but I’ll try and drop in on a little susaw of French language as we go along. Hello, Satyam. How are you? So, you can hear siren behind you. So, any we got any fluent French speakers? I was with the delightful Alexort or or Mrs. John with the delightful Alex port yesterday in GR which I always thought was re but that just shows what I know. Um but it’s spelled R E I Ms and Rans and Epony are the capital of Champagne region. So have very affluent city as you expect that gives its name to to Champagne. So we were there yesterday. I had to try some and we had to try some. Yeah, we did. bought a bottle of have a bottle of champagne this evening. Sus uh as they say around these parts is Mrs. J. What you’re saying that I’m not Florent Lori H is is is that what I’m getting from there? Um no, we we are both uh you know kind of beginners. Uh we have earn a little knowledge. Um but you know enough to get by. We we can we can go and order drinks and food and um you know places to stay and we can find places. We can make stuff understood. So Ronnie loves France. That’s fabulous. Franophiles on here. Hello Natalie from the Netherlands. Bonjour. Natalie, how are you? So we’ll just try and sprinkle a little bit of the the lingo in as we go along for those that aren’t really exposed to it. But, uh, it’s one of those languages that you sort of think you don’t know much, but actually an awful lot of the words, uh, are very similar to English. And the reason for that, of course, is we were conquered by the Normans who weren’t the French because France didn’t exist then. Um, but nonetheless, um, the Normans under William the first, one of the conqueror came and conquered Britain and of course they brought their language. So, French language, the English language gradually become sort of merged if you like. So so many of our words what we think as English words are actually French words often pronounced a little bit differently. So actually when it comes to it when you have look at French text in front of you often you’ll be able to read perhaps more than you’ll be able to listen to and understand or speak. Um pronounce is a French word and and Natalie is crazy about the French. So Shaw of course is is is a song in French. So is that is that French songs or French singers? Uh Natalie um bonjour Linda New York. Um comment William the Bastard. There’s Leslie from London bringing the tone down as ever. But um William the Bastard. That was what he was known as. Um so I think we’re about kind of on schedule a French word. So let’s kind of drop in a few of these French flay words as we go along. And uh hope you enjoy it. So we’ve got a shade of an hour. We we’re definitely finished for Ian. We’re not going to trip over him. So what I’m going to do is give you a quick kind of spin a bit of panorama and then I’ve got a kind of a knockout building to site you with. So a little bit about uh San Quent is it background is medieval really all the way back across the distance there. We’ve got a bridge over the canal Dord and alongside it the river Som. So of course this area of France notorious if you like you know we can’t detach it now from the slaughter on the S in 1916. Um but this is um you know a city that was transformed by L Grand the first world war in so far as that in 1915 this was overrun by the German army in early 1915 and for almost the duration of the Groair from 1914 to 1918 this was held under German command. Consequently, in the last few months of the war in in 1918, it came under enormous bombardment by the Allied forces by British, American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand forces looking to smash through the Hindenburg line, this line of fortifications. And so 80% of this city was destroyed. Shantur, thank you. Female singer Lesie. Um, so 8% was destroyed. So it came to rebuild. After the war, the treaty of Versailles, the Germans handed over a huge cash check uh for basically recompense. Another French or recompense uh a French word, okay, to to to cover the cost of the war. So the rebuilding began to take place and fascinatingly in this city it focused on art deco. So I’m going to start us here in this building in front of us. And I’m not sure how familiar those are with art deco. It sort of starts sort of before the first world war. Then it’s kind of interrupted. Interrupt, another French word. Um, but then because they are very cashri, they can afford to appoint the most fashionable architects here in northern France to rebuild. And so this becomes France’s first city of the art deco. And oh gosh, art deco is a kind of I’ll get the gimbal going in a sec when we walk on. is a sort of strange sort of blend of kind of cubism, lots of kind of straight lines, the arcs of nature. Um, and then everything’s kind of very simplified. It’s a kind of rejection of art, nuvo, which is kind of very very kind of floral, very decorative kind of nymphs and legends. And so it is a kind of a new form of interesting brutalism that is about lines and contrast and colors and texture. So we’re going to go across the crossing. I’m just going to reset the gimbal while I do. So just we’ll come off for a second and then we’ll go back up on the other side. We’ll get some closes. Bear with me one sec. Yeah. Yeah. The gumball they fight you. So um there’s over 3,000 uh art deco facads here. Obviously some are if you like more memorable uh than others, but I’m going to try and share as many as I can uh through one sec. Can you just push that cable in? Gently. Is that in? Thank you. No, that’s not in. That’s it. Thank you. So, I I’m hoping you can see and hear me or just catch up with that which accidentally had an attack of the gimbal, the dreaded gimbals. So just let me know if you can hear me and I’m going to try and give you this building. Ah fantastic. Thank you. So we’re going across the road sort of come a bit close to it but um you see a lot of contrast with this Deco buildings. So the country and the brick and the concrete and concrete of course was a new building material. It was cheap. So it’s not stone. What looks like kind of stone elements is is concrete. So again, it’s a blend of uh of materials. Um but also arcing back to ancient. Look at this. What’s this? This is red, isn’t it? Of one of Ian Brazy’s Norman doors. So they’re taking elements of the past but reinterpreting them with uh modernism. And of course, most famously inventing new forms of graphic design as well. also the conservatire, the conservatory, the music, music, the theater. Three French words that we can all easily understand um is the the kind of art deco is a way of life. It’s not just a form kind of architecture that influences fashion, music, buildings, typology, uh advertising, uh and and so not all the buildings are art deco here. Some of them were rebuilt in a classical French style, but they basically there was a bit of a sort of government ordinance, I think, as I understand it, that said it can’t be bland. Either it’s kind of got to be um like ble pock, which kind of style that you got here, classical French, or very very kind of modern, or if it’s medieval, we’re going to see as it’s going to tour towards towards the end of the tour. Um if where it’s medieval, it could be rebuilt, they’ve rebuilt, that’s the Basilica, Hotel Devil, the town hall. um hotel of course French word hotel retell um so consequently a lot of them um decided really to go with this art deco because the money was on hand and it’s also a break from the past and when we think about the kind of the mental scarring the societal impact of the first world war for a start we’re talking about a great deal of death of loss of fathers, of brothers, of husbands, of of male friends. So consequently, I think the desire to escape and to kind of emerge out of that into this is obviously more French classical stuff into a form of modernity becomes more understandable kind of rejection of the past because all the past had brought you know was pain, warfare, suffering, death. I think it kind of makes it easier to understand. And of course, don’t forget it’s not just about the the death. You’ve also, of course, you’ve got those that came back wounded, blinded, amputees, and so forth. So, a very much of a scarred France that had gone into the war in 1914, think jolly jaunt over in a few months. It turned into, you know, a horrendous experience for them. So I think set against that you can understand why they would embrace the 1920s with kind of vigor with the enthusiasm to embrace the new the new vote. All right it’s not our new vote rejection of that. We’re going to look over down this street in a minute, but I just want to take you down a couple streets. And I must say, we nicked quite a bit of the material for this tour from a tour that we did uh a couple of days, a self-guided tour, but you look at this here. It’s so lovely. All the decorative elements on the buildings and the iron w again, the geometry classic dec. Oh, sorry to hear that, Julie. you are on the mend before too long. But this building on this corner here, I think is probably one of the ultimate uh art decker buildings. But I think we’ll look at it on the way back because we need to be in a different position. I want to just take you down here first. Just show you a couple of buildings that we found on the self-directed tour. Um so this is the building I want to show you, but it’ll look a lot better from a distance. But again using concrete, using steel, using glass, you know, it’s a rejection of the historic classical building materials. But and in doing so, they’re creating an entire new language of architecture and construction. Obviously, a steel frame building replaces the need for wood. So, you know, you’ve got a wholly different non-organic element to a building. This building if you see it’s a kind of exoskeleton here you’ll see you know we got a steel platforms steel you know uprightes they’re kind of holding it together um it’s an entirely different approach to building. So, art deco really is not just a a style, it’s an approach, modernity, everything about the new. And so, when we think about the new, 1920s is the great embrace of the automobile, freedom was now to have a car and those that had money. And of course, these stories are always about the folk that have got money. Um, the thing to do was to have a beautiful car, you know, maybe a Mercedes-Benz or a Bugatti or, you know, some beautiful car to drive along. And of course, then people wanted to incorporate these into how they lived. So, the house we’re going to show you in just a minute or so is um very unusual in so far as it incorporates a garage, almost a bedroom for the car, which I think is a kind of lovely idea um of this idea of modernity and freedom. And of course, you know, going from northern France being, you know, mudfields and smashed to hell to re being rebuilt, you know, with roads and with kind of practical uh, you know, the ability to get out and about again. You can see again it’s it’s leaving that past behind that’s been so difficult for everybody. Um, and closing the book. Um, here is the prefecture. So again, not art deco classical French, but I mean bear in mind, not every building of course was knocked down or bombed on bombed entirely. You know, obviously some survived, but 80% were destroyed here. So you really are looking at, you know, a city that’s been entirely kind of reconstructed. Um, but as I say, those with the deepest pockets were not looking to rebuild in the traditional French style. They were looking to implant a version and a vision of themselves upon the city. that they become part of the city by creating new art. I think this house here is a really kind of fabulous example of this. Um motifs to look out for here very very common that we’re going to see on other buildings as we go around in the art deco style the cut corners. So, if you look at the windows, the mullions above the windows, we’ve not got straight lines. We’ve got cut corners. A really, really kind of classic uh deco style. If we come over here, you’ll see the decoration of the facade with tiles. So, again, it’s a mix of media that we’re seeing here. Look at the lines of the metal work. First, the bowing, but also the um the arches, as you might say. And this is said to represent water like the spring of life of kind of new life sort of coming through. So, you know, we’ve got metal work here, we’ve got tiles, we’ve got stone, we’ve got concrete. And it’s this expression of modernity um that separates out I think deco from any other building building because it’s not about fashion. This is about an opportunity to rebuild a city from the dust starting again like we hope of course will happen to to wartorrn cities you know across the world but chances are they won’t have you know the reach of the of the wealth of it. So, as promised, here’s this chap. He’s brought he’s built something that is beautifully balanced all the way down. But of course, on this side, he decides to extend for his garage. So, the difference with with with Neuvo uh really is they wouldn’t have had the cars. So, there he is. He’s built his little bedroom for his car. Oh, yeah. Early Deco without a doubt. I mean, Deco continues. Really starts about 1907. He’s interrupted by the first world war. Uh the Paris expedition in 1924 I believe that’s when it’s it height and that’s when San Quentan was being rebuilt was in the renovate the renovation of San Quentan was in um the early 1920s. So this this is going to absolute height peak if you like of a of deco styling. So very very classical deco but again coming up close even look. So we’ve now got texture not just about the materials we’ve got texture within the uh the metals as well. We’ve got cur we’ve got raw tine but we’ve also got hammered sheet metal as well. Fran’s absolutely right. Repudiation that is a brilliant way another French word repudion um of of everything that had come before. It is is not simply a style. It’s saying drawing a line under the past and trying to start again which is bold. It’s noble and uh you know it’s successful uh in its own terms but of course it’s also exclusive. You’re not getting people you know from from the from the working classes uh be able to afford artist. Our first glimpse over here of the basilica just sort of sitting behind us. So give you a sneaky peek of The med cathedral was of course was very very heavily damaged but then rebuilt. So nothing really kind of got away in this sector of northern France. And of course it was the shelling that really did the damage. It wasn’t the hand fighting. It was the constant shelling over weeks and months and years. Um the just ground buildings into the dust. Um wasn’t like the second war where there was kind of tank damage that that was pretty minimal during the the gro the first war. But it was the shells flying in. And of course, you know, San’s location on the Hindenburg line, which is a very, very heavily fortified line where the Germans had dug in, meant, of course, they felt they needed much heavier munitions to sort of smash out. So consequently, even in comparison to some other relatively nearby towns and cities, Squinta really took a huge hit in destruction on destruction, a French word. Um, so I mean, look at this building in front of us. Now, this to me is the absolute kind of peach of them. I mean, this is the picture that I put yesterday, I think, when I was listing the tour. Um, it’s got everything. So, again, look at the the patterning on the end, the tile work. So, we’ve got color, we’ve got texture, we’ve got ceramics, we’ve got steel, we’ve got brick, we’ve got tile, we’ve got echoes of classical French building, classical Italian almost. And yet, it’s his own entire but look at the the window design. Could be Charles Renie McIntosh, couldn’t it? The Glasgow school. Look at those lines. You couldn’t wish to see anything that is more authentically deco in its execution than this building. And of course, this was a great department store because what was also the 20s, it was a great flourishing of fashion. The point made very well by an expert we were listening on our earpieces on the talk of the day was of course that during the first war that Grare women went out to work because of course the men were away many of them in industrial centers going working in industry in textiles and so forth. I was giving you a pause on that. I mean, look at that. Isn’t that a doozy? Um, so of course once the war came and of course came to the end and the men of course a lot fewer of them than perhaps set out came back, you couldn’t put that genie back in the bottle. The women weren’t going to go sort of meekly go back to work. You know, the the first war was a great drive of universal suffrage as we know um across much of the world. So women getting the vote. Um and so you also get then this implicit rejection of female um femininity as you might say and perhaps with good cause with so many eligible bachelors particularly in the kind of upper class officer elite having been killed the object of finding a husband was that much harder. So this is perhaps the era when girls just want to have fun sort of begins. And you know, you’ve got women thinking about fashion, thinking about the dancers, the jazz music, the Charlesson, okay, the flapper, you know, dresses that are no longer decorous and go down to the ankle. They are around the knee and they’ve got tassels. So when you dance, they kind of swing around and whirl around. It’s a decade of unaloyed fun. A it’s hard to think really particularly when we look back and think what was going to happen in the 1930s the shadow of fascism and the war and so forth that it was such an unalloyed period of happiness and of course until 1929 and the Wall Street crash and the world economy kind of goes down but in that period sort of before. So here’s a final view of this building doozy will be a French word. Yeah, look at that. Is that the can can a little bit earlier but yeah, absolutely real fun. But you know, I think what’s whereas the can can is obviously women in service to male pleasure. I think a lot of the the 20s dancing and the jazz age, it’s about women enjoying themselves, independence, the long cigarette holder, you the long gloves, you know, that whole kind of look, you know. Um, so there’s kind of so much going on there. So, Bolo Pri so now is a you know kind of midlevel kind of bargainy kind of uh supermarket. Um but this store and again showing huge uh echoes and and elements of art deco is was rather um the fashionable department store. Dip out more French word okay to come to for the latest fashions for your jazz records. Okay. Um so you know you’ve got then retail is following the fashion. So the retailers want to say come in here we have got the modern styles um and so they embrace modernity within the building. sort of go up to the top you’ve got some quite interesting sort of organic if you look uh sort of shells and nature in other kind of features but it always has to be sort of fairly stylized whereas art nuvo was incredibly detailed and textured like like the the great Czech artist I forget his name from Prague that does these beautiful sort of swirling designs it’s much more simplistic so that consequently just talk about the railings there um if we go kind of the street iron work you So this is a classic art deco rose. You know, it does enough to tell us what it is without worrying too much about getting into pure representation. It’s an abstraction at its heart because it’s about challenging our ideas of what kind of nature is representation. But yeah, Monopri, if you’ve been in, as it’s kind of mid-level kind of department store, sell clothing and food and kind of bit of household goods. Um, but again, look at those windows. the Renie McIntosh style again the squares the intersections but we’ve also got if we look columns so we’ve got kind of Romanesque stylings working into this as well we’ve got lots sort of clamshells up at the top nature and of course the curves of nature was very much so art deu it’s really difficult to kind of nail down and so I don’t understand why people say I is you know isn’t this more that this than that it’s difficult to say because it embraces so much but I can tell you definitely This is all of the time of art deco. So, let’s kind of a walk on because I’ve suddenly got 20 cent battery left, which isn’t great. But, uh, nonetheless, we’re going to be back here. We’re back here in in October, so we can kind of do a tour tour part two. Um, but let’s go and have a look at the square. So of course like every uh French French city the plus in the center is of course the uh the kind of center point of the square and again I would say this is you know really decorative most people haven’t really not really aware of sanquita I wouldn’t say it’s probably you going to find it in riches I wouldn’t think it is it’s it own place it’s got its own identity but of course at the heart of it we’ve We’ve got the Hotel Devil. So, let’s go and have a wander over there and anch a wand down by the theater. And actually, we’ll go around this way. Um, and I’ll try and get as much in as possible before I battery dies. Sorry, I thought I had more battery power today, but uh where we are. So, the squares are nice. So, again, look at the the iron. Let’s see if it’s drainage, but uh not any drainage. It’s not drainage, is it? It’s, you know, it’s ornate. It is de decor. Decorated. Decor French word. How many French words have we covered today? Already 100 French words. So Kevin, we are in a region of Picad um in northern France. We are northeast of Paris, Pari and we’re in the city of San Quenta. Yeah. Drain. Exactly. Things can be functional and beautiful. It is the two are not mutually exclusive. It seems that in urban design we’ve forgotten that it is entirely possible to build something that is both decorous and beautiful. Bow of course pretty French word. Um so this by the way this chap over here I can’t remember his name so forgive me. Um I’ll Google I’ll put him on on Facebook afterwards. He is kind of the the artist uh in here that was famous that was associated with one of the French kings Louis the 15th I believe. And so they’ve got a a prep a statue here in the square, but it’s more of paper mach fiberglass rather. It’s rather funky. So again, you’ve got this embracing of the old and the new within within the same place. Um, which is fantastic. So I’m aware that time may be against my battery. We’re going to whip around the square and hotel and then we’re going to go have a look at the basilica and hopefully we’ll have enough battery left to so Jean Villa is I believe I think it’s a theater certainly a former theater if it’s not a current theater of course a French word um the hotel Deville the town hall we went there yesterday and I’m going to post a video uh when I get home on on Facebook of the interior art deco of this building now this was uh uh you know goes all the way back to the 11th 19th century, but of course there’s much change. You get a sort of 16th century styling, the hotel devil, but again was substantially damaged in the first world war just about stood up to the punishment, but it had to be substantially rebuilt. But there was enough it left in terms of the facade they decided to kind of rebuild it, but in the interior they decided to build in the art deco style. And so it’s absolutely stunning. We were there the day before yesterday. I’ve done a video about kind of five minutes in length. I’m going to put that up on YouTube when I get back home. at Bell. Absolutely. Um, so I mean it’s very Flemish in style. You could be in EP Town Hall if those familiar with with EP which of course another very important kind of World War II uh destination. Um Maurice come on to our tour. Thank you Sam. That is fantastic. That’s why these are such a joy because we have a collaboration a French word a collaboration um with with with our viewers with our Voyagers. It’s not simply oneway traffic. I bring you the sites and you bring me your perspectives. So let us have a kind of wander down then into the the basin the basinica. Okay. And the cobbles as well. Yeah. Okay. So again another if you look at the design it’s probably hard close up. We’ve got swirling patterns. They’re like seashells. So again, you know, you’ve got the opportunity to create something that is not merely functional, but has got an aesthetic appeal and a statement to make. It’s it’s referencing back the curves of art deco. So these might have been done 20 years ago, 10 years ago, but they’ve embraced this art deco as part of their identity. French word. Okay. So um there is a consistency now I think in the uh in the way that they’re kind of approaching. So again, this bow front up here, the brick work, absolute stylistic art deco. But in front of us, of course, we’ve got something a good older, much more medieval. Medieval, French word. Medial media means the middle by the way. The media, the middle, the period between the dark ages and what’s called the enlightenment. So the bit in the middle, the medieval, they just called it the middle bit because no one would care. And now we’re fascinated by the medial, but it was really a very defamatory term really. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to have a see if we can just pop through the door. I’m not going to talk if we get in and I don’t know what the signals will be like. It might cut out because obviously it is a great medieval stone cathedral. But if the signal holds up, I’m going to walk us around and spend a couple of minutes in here because it’s absolutely stunning. There are seven fabulous cathal French wood cathedral um in Picard. Um we’re at one yeah Rams Rem yesterday am which I’ve showed you on the uh on Facebook. Uh there’s one here one at Lan uh one of Swasson Noy. Um they are notorious for the quality of the cathedrals. So these are largely 12th and 13th century in construction. So a bit older than the minster. But uh of course as you can see the white areas by contrasted to the older gray areas. You can see where we’ve got the reconstruction after the first war. The groier the construction a French word. You see how many French words? So, I’m not going to talk because that’s inappropriate. But, uh, if the signal holds up, we’re going to go in and we’re going to have a little look. [Music] It’s amazing. Wasn’t that nice? As Leslie said, it was totally deserted. I had no idea if the uh the signal was going to hold up or if my indeed my battery was going to run out. But uh thankfully neither of those things happened. And so we’ve got just got time enough battery hopefully to show you a couple more little bits. It’s a particularly fine uh deco um rendering. Uh is it isn’t it a great city of contrast though? I don’t know what you’ve sort of seen and what you felt. You’ve a real snapshot but I think it is ancient and modern. It’s a city with history but it’s full of young people. There’s a vibrant uh student population here. And uh so we’ve got, you know, a kind of really nice mix. It’s clean. Look at the streets. They shine. Every look spotless. You don’t see graffiti. You don’t see um rubbish on the streets. You know, this is, I’m sorry to say, a better way to live than we managed to have currently in the UK. So this is La Post in front of the post office. And again, a fabulous art deco building and style. I’ll come and try and show you the gate of that in a minute and the interior if I can. Um, I’ve got a couple of images. Um, I’m glad it’s a great sign. Look, I’m determined to bring you French in 1080 HD. Uh, for all you guys that have sat through the frustration of the Zoom clouds, Zoom unfortunately is a tool of COVID and it’s chucking in the bin. It is rubbish. I know the P was closed, but I’ve got some picture of the interior. So, yeah, our house. Yeah, it’s about five minutes the other way. I don’t think we’d make it before the signal ran out. So, I just wanted to show you this before we have a quick look at the post office. And this, if we think about Deco, one of the things we think about first is obviously the font, isn’t it? Now, this of course was we’ve talked about, haven’t we, Jazz age, we’ve talked about music, we’ve talked about fashion. Um, but of course the other great breakthrough in the 1920s was cinema. So, places of entertainment. Now, take a look at that. So, again, we’ve got those clean lines. We’ve got the mix of materials. We have got the most outrageously art deco font you can imagine. We’ve got the corners cut. Um, we’ve got the mix of media between the brick just for artist and resid of course. artist residors. You can see again we’ve got nature’s motifs within this. And if you look closely in the little sea, there’s actually a gold little head. And that’s the the man who paved this building to be restored. He had himself put into the fabric of it such as his belief in the art deco. So decorative art, the decorative arts, French words. So isn’t that fab? I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We will walk on. I will show you Laost and hopefully I can show you a couple of and then next time when it’s actually our house, then not only will I show you the outside, we will show you the inside as well. So, not going to get any further in. We’ll go and show you the gates. Then I’ve got a couple of images inside because again, this was a building the post office. I post Look at the clock. The clock classic art deco in its design very very simple a style that kind of went on to inspire still inspires designers today. You know the toolbox you know of of of most graphic designers is shot through with uh with graphic design references. So with art deco references so it’s kind of not lost it hasn’t left us. It’s been so integrated now. Hello sir. um that you know we we we very rarely see in its purity. Now what we see is it distillation distillation the French word um in into our cultural forms and norms um that make it harder for us now to kind of pick out but look at this metal work in here and again I apologize it could cut out at any minute but look at this brick archway. So again, the archway echoing the cathedral, but look what we’re doing with the bricks. Look at the texture we’re creating, textural elements with the metal work, with the gates, with the shapes, with the styling. It is a a kind of wonderful juosition of brick and metal work but something that could in the hands of most urban designs let’s face it including many of them in York have been so ordinary ordinire French word but instead it turns into an absolute triumph of the art deco art form and so to sort of conclude this tour and Your kind of first view, your first look view across French word at San Quenta has been an attempt to put it in its context which is an historic city that suffered such catastrophic damage in the first world war. They had no choice but to rebuild. But rather than rebuilding it as it was, it chose to embrace modernity, in its lifestyles, in its fashions, in its art forms, in its buildings, in its belief in a better future, a future without war. Now, of course, the optimism was soon to be dashed. The 1929 Wall Street crash, the the the sort of following crash, the world by economies, um, you know, put an end to that kind of optimism. But I think there’s something very beautiful that there’s something about the power of the eternal human spirit to rebound from disaster, devastation, and death. Devastation, French word, um, and to rebuild. And perhaps in it somewhere is inspired by the faith, the afterlife, the rebirth. So, I’m going to leave you there. Um, and um, I’m going to flick you over because we’re about to lose all battery power. Mhm. So for John, I do hope you’ve enjoyed your first little take on San Quenta. Uh I I am utterly beguiled by this city. It’s going to really grab me. Um it we’re going to see San Quenta, but we’re going to see the sites of on once we’re here and I’m renovating. There are so many wonderful places to take you and show you and of course from Parish from time to time as well in HD. Um so there’s going to be so much. I’m actually going to start a new channel called Postcards for P. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing stuff from Yorkshire. It just makes no sense having a channel called Exploring Yorkshire and then putting a bunch of French stuff on it. So I will be kind of setting up a new channel. So hopefully you can you can follow me on both those channels. So thank you from today from Pikiny. I hope you go have a relax now. You can go nip the L make a cup of tea and and then sit down and watch Mr. Brazy. So do send him my regards and look forward to seeing you all very very soon. from from France. [Music]