The arrival at Cité Véron

Jacques Prévert, resistant to the idea of becoming sedentary, has lived as a nomad for a long time, in furnished flats or hotels, in Paris, Saint-Paul-de-Vence and Antibes. In 1995, with his wife Janine and his daughter Michèle, known as Minette, he moves in to the 6 bis Cité Véron, a small cobbled dead-end running along boulevard de Clichy, indicated by a beautiful enamelled sign. He stays there until 1975, date in which he definitely settles down to Omonville-la-Petite, in Contentin, up to his death in 1977.

The flat of cite Véron opens on a terrace which the Prévert share with Boris and Ursula Vian, behind the sails of the Moulin Rouge. Jacques Prévert has the inside of the flat completely renewed. On Alexandre Trauner’s advice, a set designer and close friend, he resorts to the architect Jacques Couëlle, renowned for his houses in the organic and sculptural forms which evoke the post-war “architecture-sculpture” movement. Assisted by his son, Savin Couëlle, then studying architecture in Paris and, one very likely says, assisting Alexandre Trauner, Jacques Couëlle invents in the middle of Paris an uncluttered space with curved angles, white walls and Provencal red floor-tiles.

” The place was only a concrete structure. I created everything on the spot. The workers, I had found them in the pub downstairs. The plaster of the walls was strengthened by the hair recovered under the armchairs of the Moulin Rouge, then abandoned. I fetched the water for the construction in the neighbour’s flat, Boris Vian and Ursula Kübler. For the sad terrace which is the roof of the Moulin Rouge, I brought six enormous bathtubs with feet of lions to plant lilac. Jacques and Janine were very happy in this flat. ” Savin Couëlle, son of Jacques Couëlle

The terrace served as a place of reception to some of the most beautiful demonstrations of the famous Middle school of ‘Pataphysics, ” society of clever and useless researches ” created in 1948. And so Boris Vian, Jacques Prévert and Ergé, his Briard sheepdog, members of the “Corps des Satrapes” – the most famous and the most closed of the Middle school of ‘Pataphysics bodies – founded the «Terrasse des Trois Satrapes ».

Share
Top
Credits