How I See the Floors

Inspiring things I've seen around lately

My father and I went to the early morning flea markets right up until I left my home town in my early 20s. I searched for history. We had something we called our history, we had our odd traditions, we had our generations of cousins far far away and all of the family stories, we had this rather large rambling family home, we shared this penchant for going to the flea market together, searching. It was always about finding something valuable. You know, things possibly worth money. Digging, scanning every table, every little case, searching. "Come and see what I've found."

There were a few things that gave something value. One, being a collectible or well crafted. The other, the thing being old. Really old meant really valuable in my mind. Like this object had tendrils that extended and intertwined with something completely inaccessible to us now. Holding secrets in the present tense, while having mingled with emotions and harbored the collective thoughts and sighs that changed and swerved and as a whole became self aware. Things that spanned farther than any human life were valuable beyond belief in my child's mind, something with a story that could be legend for all the lack of proof, except for this object. These old objects we rifled through at the flea markets held different degrees of connectedness. It was our pastime to work together on developing that eye to see and discuss their placement within the framework of time.

Years ago, less than a year after my father died, only about 3 months new into my marriage and having just arrived to the city of Lyon, I was standing in front of a church built on original early Christian temple foundations that dated back to the Roman era. That warm afternoon, a buried passion for the lifelong project I had shared with my newly lost father was staring me in the face. This passion we had shared, and this place, one he never had the chance to see, this ancient place, took me and held fast, cemented me, shook the foundations of my grief almost violently. With that, like any slap to the face, I felt hurled back into a pre-loss-of-my-father frame of mind. That moment, my connection with Lyon the place grew. Not just a flash or a feeling. I believe Lyon has great value not only because it is old, but because it is thriving and old, and sprite and lanky, mean. But most of all, determined to survive and remain its very old self.

I was standing in the "laboratory" of the Boulangerie that will become my teaching kitchen on my first visit and the floors caught my interest. They're a hodgepodge of various dated working class tiles, patched together. The shard like mosaic type floor is typical from about 80 years ago. There are plenty of things we could do with the floors, lay down hardwood, etc. There are bare areas as well, tamped bare earth where the oven has always been, for example. My plan is to find materials that harmonize with this rather random splash of tiling styles and hopefully to find a way to bring them all together, in my father's way. Uncovering and buffing out the little details, to hold in hand a bit of the existing patina, and pull out as much of this place's original story as I can.

Changing Focus

We are not moving far, I would say about 5 blocks away from where we live now. When you walk the streets of most of centre-ville in Lyon, pretty grey stone Haussmann style buildings that are relatively new to the architectural cityscape line the avenues, each building featuring its own signature details, sculptural elements at the main doorways, big varnished wooden doors with brass knobs, and mosaic tiled hallways with marble staircases. This sumptuous entry and housing style is what the French call "Grand Standing". The apartments in these buildings, which originally took one entire or even several floors of a building, were built as dwellings from the beginning and have been slowly transformed and divided over about 120 years and generations into the apartments we know now.

Our building is one of the many of this sort on the frontier of a sort of bourgeois enclave, the Martiniere neighborhood. There's a little footpath of an alleyway that communicates the Halle de la Martiniere to Place Sathonay, and there you step out onto cobblestone, and look up and begin to see a remarkable shift in building style, to a different type of architecture that has a very interesting and colorful story. These buildings, much more modest in structure and finishing, were created as workshops in Lyon's silk production. Single exterior doors open into tight hallways, tunnels, and interesting labyrinth type passages and stairwells that cut through and make footpath shortcuts between the winding roads that climb this hill. These are called traboules, and there are hundreds to tell you about. But back to the buildings: These workshops were not finished with plasterwork, moulding, and wood paneling, but followed their function with enormous bare beams that floated above cavernous spaces holding the enormous looms employed in the weaving of Lyon's world renowned silk. The whole mass of this district was built rather quickly in the mid 1800s, in a grand re-organization of Lyon's silk industry by Napoleon III, with the goal of consolidating production into one area of the city, since it was previously scattered between various districts: The docks just south of Vieux Lyon, warehouses in the 8th arrondissement, and trading and shipping consignment houses located on the presqu'ile. These workshops were built over this hill that in pre-revolutionary days had been church owned gardens, orchards and vineyards.

This is from a finished apartment we looked at one street over (too expensive).

Our ceilings will be lower but feature this kind of wood and stone.

When we started looking at property on the Croix Rousse hill, the exposed ceiling beams and the warm stone became the predominant architectural detail that gave the spaces their flavor. Since the ceilings of the majority of these workshops were originally built high enough to accommodate the loom works, the thing you notice immediately in the renovated spaces we were looking at were their sweeping volumes and warehouse-like loft style spaces. This is a very seductive but also troubling aspect of the architecture here, if you have ever tried to furnish a room with 20 foot ceilings on a budget. While the space seems enormous which can sometimes seem cold, at the same time, the earth and wood elements bring at the same time a unique and architecturally indigenous warmth that achieves a balance. We looked at a handful of apartments that had been previously renovated, some very well done, others DIY projects gone awry when people built shoddy looking platforms with cheap stained plywood (think frathouse) and called them "lofts". They all had one thing in common: EXPENSIVE. The average price per square meter for the most polished places was way beyond our means for the floor space we needed. We comforted ourselves with the thought that they would cost a fortune to heat.

The boulangerie has what is called a "floor and a half", meaning that we have the ground floor and an originally conceived second floor with lower ceiling heights, yet with their old beams and stone original to the structure.The boulanger tells us that it has "always been a boulangerie", but I am not sure about that. The notaire's job is to do the research on the history of the building, and we have a first appointment with him in a couple of weeks.

When we first moved into our current apartment, I had problems with the ballroom-like ceiling height, feeling like all of our belongings had sunk to the bottom of a fish tank. You don't think about these things when you're falling in love with empty space and sweeping windows, and it takes some finesse to try and draw the gaze up from the floor with artwork and furniture arrangement to visually dwell in the whole space rather than just what's settled at the bottom.

So that will be the first main difference in considering the organization of the space in the boulangerie. It is going to be much more down to earth in its volumes. I think this is a good thing, because the predominant warmth of the wood and stone elements are naturally adapted, in my opinion, to surrounding people in an intimate way.

The Boulangerie

Now that Ian is two, we're beginning to really feel the need for a little more space. It's a buyer's market, but when you've got such a wonderful place to come home to, nothing seems like an improvement. We calculated many scenarios. We dropped our weekend plans to check out neighborhoods and argue the ins and outs of every detail in a series of imagined housing situations. We got into spats about toilets in bathrooms and toilets outside of bathrooms. We drove across vast expanses covering every single road, zigzagging for hours through neighborhoods near and far. We frustrated many real estate agents. In the midst of all of this, I was taking my winter morning walks up Lyon's various long ancient urban stairwells. Looking over the city, I was silently saying my goodbyes while I watched the sun rise over fog softened rooftop silhouettes. Staying in the choice neighborhoods would have to entail a stroke of luck.



The lock tumbles, the wood creaks and settles under your feet, the light plays just so. We have allowed ourselves to be pulled into the fold of this family heirloom-like bijou of an apartment, magically placed on a square nestled into the curve of the Saone, river on one side, hill on the other, every day for the last eight years. At first, the 14 foot high ceilings, glistening polished marble fireplaces, the beautiful carved panels and 19th century woodwork didn't seem possible. The soft light, branches of the trees swaying in the breeze, birds singing on the square, too luxurious to be true but somehow happening. We painted the walls grey and kept the wood and marble buffed and polished.



Looking for an apartment has been a very invigorating project. The stories I could tell you! Once we had seen everything on the market in the neighborhoods we wanted, it became a mad scramble to get in and see everything the day it was put up for sale. All the best apartments usually got offers the first day they were on the market. One day, between appointments to look, I stopped into a real estate office with the idea of asking a few questions about possibly finding a combination shop front and living space, just an idea for my teaching kitchen. A charming man named M. Bernard, an expert in his field, received me in his office and listened to my dream. His eyes lit up immediately. He had a place in mind. It is an old boulangerie, smack in the middle of the perfect neighborhood. It needs more than a little work, more than a renovation. It needs a complete strip down to the bones and a rebuild. Before he saw it, Loic thought I had gone off the deep end. I told him, in preparation for our first visit together, that this world was created by people who were brave enough to imagine possibilities and make them happen. I reminded him of projects I have handled in the past. With this in mind, we examined the old boulangerie, we held hands, and we dared to fall in love with what was underneath.



You know, I have been giving my classes for awhile now. This was initially a series of talks for Dartmouth College students here on exchange in Lyon. When I got started at Emile Henry, the clientele changed but the material remained as dense as it was in the beginning. The context of Lyon as a city and the love of cooking from the market basket help people to remember and learn better, feel like they’re taking home something more than a recipe. I have garnered much encouragement and support from my students, while I give them encouragement to go ahead and build on their repertoire.



Just the other day, the owners accepted our offer on the boulangerie. We’re going for it. I am going to build my teaching kitchen.



One day you go from "wouldn't that be nice" to "now is the perfect time" And when that happens, if you've been taking yourself seriously and really asking this question in earnest, your dream, the one you have explored over and over again in your mind for years, so much so that it seems like already a done deal in your mind, might actually fit into your life plans.