A new roundabout has appeared at the northern gate to the town, the Porte de Chinon. This reinforces the original 17th century layout of the gate composition, based as it is on a circular layout of rotation.
While the by-pass remains incomplete in its north western sector, all the passing traffic, including frequent euro-artic-trucks, have to navigate this poem of French civic traffic engineering. It seems odd that there is always money for endless traffic engineering of doubtful purpose, while the old stones of the town languish in dereliction. Don't we all love our cars!
It seems to the old Abbé Henri Proust that the Lemercier brothers would have added a central obelisk, in the manner of seventeenth century Roma, as a confirmation of the centrality of the layout and a reminder of more celestial ambitions for the cité idéale
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2 comments:
I agree. Une pyramide is needed. I bet they thought about it then decided that the annual repair bill after it was crashed into regularly wouldn't be worth it.
An obelisk would not last more than a few days with all the truckers that "drive" around there!!! UNLESS of course it was 2mtrs dia...
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