with a decision that was rather impulsive i stayed for almost a month in this town to join an urban planning workshop. there were lots of stories about the workshop where i got to meet lots of different people from all over the world: france, of course, italy, china, lebanon, russia, finland, india, south africa, and many others. but i'm gonna write here mostly about the town itself. cergy-pontoise is one of the five new cities built around paris from scratch on the 70s to depopulate the metropolitan. the evidents of the 70s architecture can be seen on the brutalistic buildings on the grand centre in cergy prefecture, the supposedly main city center.
there were two things that impressed me the most. first, i have to admit that i adore the delicacy of the french aesthetic. the newer part of the towns were built in a similar style with the old existing ancient cities (both cergy and pontoise). and even when they're not that similar, there was this delicacy on the details of the buildings which although simple are pleasing to the eyes. our journey back home from the place of workshop in cergy to our residence in pontoise took an almost 30 minutes walk but the pain was lessen by the pretty architecture. second, it amazed me how the people here are rooted for their city, at least some people i met. they're proud of being born there and want to see improvement on it. maybe because it was built in a good way and it is still a functional city it wasn't hard to be rooted to this place as your hometown. it's just amazing considering that it's a very young city and it was in the suburb of a big city, one of the major big cities in the world that is.
