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Attempt at a Psychogeographical
Description of Les Halles
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Abdelhafid Khatib
Internationale Situationniste #2 (December 1958)

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Translated by Paul Hammond

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In actual fact, to achieve the simplest of improvements in social

relations requires the mobilization of such extraordinary collective
energy that if the real importance of this disproportion were to
appear to public consciousness in its true light, it would act as a
discouraging factor . . . This frightful disproportion has to be
considerably attenuated for consciousness through an artificial and
substantial mythological amplification of the anticipated results,
taken to lengths more in keeping with the aim of exerted effort and
whose importance it is already impossible to hide, since it is directly
experienced. These deformations which, seen from the outside,
have a fantastic aspect, are precisely the work of ideologies which,
for that reason, constitute the indispensable condition of social
progress.
Leszek Kolakowski, Responsabilit et Histoire

THE WORLD WE LIVE IN, and beginning with its material dcor, is
discovered to be narrower by the day. It stifles us. We yield profoundly to its
influence; we react to it according to our instincts instead of according to
our aspirations. In a word, this world governs our way of being, and it grinds
us down. It is only from its rearrangement, or more precisely its sundering,
that any possibility of organizing a superior way of life will emerge.
The Situationists believe themselves capable, due to their current methods
and to the foreseeable development of these methods, not only of
rearranging the urban environment, but of changing it almost at will. Up till
now the dearth of backing and the lack of help accorded us by people who
largely claim to be interested in all that relates to urbanism, to culture and to
their reaction to life, has, by default, only permitted us to undertake a
minimum of experimentation, remaining almost at the level of personal play.
But what we seek is nothing less than direct, effective intervention, taking
us from those preliminary studies that suggest themselves and here
psychogeography will be of great import to the instituting of new
Situationist ambiances, whose essential traits are of short duration and
permanent change.
Psychogeography, the study of the laws and precise effects of a
consciously or unconsciously elaborated geographical environment acting

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directly on affective behavior, subsumes itself, according to Asger Jorn's

definition, as the science fiction of urbanism.
The means specific to psychogeography are many and varied. The first,
and most solid, is the experimental drive. The drive is a form of
experimental behavior in an urban society. At the same time as being a
from of action, it is a means of knowledge, particular to the notions of
psychogeography and the theory of unitary urbanism. Other means, such
as the reading of aerial views and plans, the study of statistics, graphs or
the results of sociological investigations, are theoretical and do not possess
the active and direct side which belongs to the experimental drive.
Nevertheless, thanks to them we can arrive at a first representation of the
environment under study. In return, the results of our study will permit
imbuing these cartographic and intellectual representations with greater
complexity and richness.

PLAN #1: THE LES HALLES UNITY OF AMBIANCE

We have chosen as the subject of a psychogeographical study the Les

Halles quarter which, unlike other areas which have been the object of
certain psychogeographical descriptions till now (Continent Contrescarpe,
the Missions trangres area), is extremely animated and well known, both
to the Parisian population and to those foreigners who have spent some
time in France.
To begin with, we will define the limits of the quarter as we conceive of it;
the characteristic divisions from the viewpoint of its ambiances; the
directions one is led to take inside and outside this terrain; then we will
make some constructive suggestions.

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In terms of its administrative definition, the Les Halles quarter is the second
quarter of the first arrondissement. Placed at the center of Paris, it is in
contact with areas which are wholly different from one another. Considered
from the viewpoint of the unity of ambiance, the quarter differs only slightly
from its official limits, and principally from an extremely large encroachment
on the second arrondissement to the north. We observe the following
boundaries: the Rue Saint-Denis to the east; the Rues Saint-Sauveur and
Bellan to the north; the Rues Hrold and d'Argout to the north-west; the
Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs to the west; and finally to the south the Rue
de Rivoli, which must be extended, beginning with the Rue de l'Arbre-Sec,
to include the Rue Sainte-Honor.
The architecture of the streets, and the changing dcor which enriches
them every night, can give the impression that Les Halles is a quarter that
is difficult to penetrate. It is true that during the period of nocturnal activity
the logjam of lorries, the barricades of panniers, the movement of workers
with their mechanical or hand barrows, prevents access to cars and almost
constantly obliges the pedestrian to alter his route (thus enormously
favoring the circular anti-drive). But despite appearances the quarter of
Les Halles is one of the easiest to cross, via the access routes which
border or cross it in every direction.
Four great thoroughfares cross Les Halles from end to end and thus help to
break them down into areas of different, but absolutely interconnected,
ambiance: the most important of these thoroughfares, running east-west, is
formed by the Rue Rambuteau, whose various extensions finish up in the
Banque de France area; the Rue du Louvre, running north-south; the Rue
des Halles, running south-east to north-west. There are numerous
secondary entry routes, for example the continuation of the Rues du
Pont-Neuf-Baltard, in contact with the Left Bank via the Pont-Neuf and
various sectors to the north via the Rues Montmatre, de Montorgueil and, to
a lesser extent, de Turbigo. This route must nevertheless be considered as
secondary due to the two relative breaks made by the crossing of the Rue
de Rivoli and the large buildings of the Halles Centrales.
The essential feature of the urbanism of Les Halles is the mobile aspect of
pattern of lines of communication, having to do with the different barriers
and the temporary constructions which intervene by the hour on the public
thoroughfare. The separated zones of ambiances, which remain strongly
connected, converge in the one place: the Place des Deux-Ecus and the
Bourse du Commerce (Rue de Viarme) complex.
To the east the first area is enclosed by Rues Saint-Denis, de Turbigo,
Pierre-Lescot and the Place Sainte-Opportune. This is the prostitution area,
with its multitude of small cafs. At the weekend a masculine and miserable
horde from other quarters seeks amusement there. A population of
down-and-outs holds sway around the Square des Innocents. The whole
area is depressing. [...]

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The Rue Saint-Denis marks a very sudden break between this area and the
Saint-Merri and Saint-Avoye quarters towards the east, but this break still
plays its part in the ambiance of Les Halles. The break being immediately
aggravated by the Boulevard de Svastapol, the area known as the Place
Saint-Merri finds itself under the diminished influence of Les Halles, while
its participation in the quarter's economic activity (the parking of lorries)
would, rather, tend to integrate it there.
To the south, the second area extends between the Rues de Rivoli,
Arbre-Sec, Saint-Honor and the Rue Berger. In contact, by day, with the
feverish commercialism of the Rue de Rivoli and the flower-market
occupying the Halles Centrales, this area is, by night, hard-working and
lively. It is here that there are the greatest number of restaurants and cafs
frequented by the workers of Les Halles. [...]
The third area, which is in the west (between the Rue du Louvre and the
Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs), is calm by day and by night. An extreme
order reigns there, and the activity, together with the ambiance, of Les
Halles goes on diminishing from east to west, before petering out in front of
the Banque de France and the Place de Valois. This bordering territory
already announces the rich quarters which are to be found nearby (PalaisRoyal, l'Opera). Almost everything encourages the idea that one is in some
residential quarter rather than in a part of Les Halles. However, passages
like the Galerie Vro-Dodat or the Cour des Fermes reveal this mobile
ambiance, and confer a bizarre and nebulous character to the area. [...]
The Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs forms a line tangential to the unity of
ambiance of Les Halles. Its interest resides in the possibilities of contact
that it furthers, above all when it passes alongside the turntable of the
Place-Deux-cus and the Rue de Viarme. As for the Place des Victoires,
onto which it gives in the north, this is a frontier foreign to Les Halles and
manages not to accede to them. The Place des Victoires is a bastion
defending the bourgeois quarters (the class struggle freighted in town
planning also informs, it must be said, the overbearing Palais de Justice in
Brussels, right on the edge of the poorest quarters).
With the fourth area, which constitutes the northern flank of Les Halles, we
arrive at the most extensive, and above all most-celebrated, part of this vast
urban complex. Let us trace its limits. To begin with, the Rue Rambuteau,
prolonged west of the glise Saint-Eustache by the Rue Coquillre,
constitutes in principle frontage (the opposite side of this thoroughfare
being none other than the alignment of pavilions of the Halles Centrales).
The eastern frontier follows the Rue Pierre-Lescot then slides up the Rue
Turbigo to reach the Rue Saint-Denis. To the west the area comes to a halt
in the Rues Hrold and d'Argout. In the northern part, beyond the Rue
tienne Marcel, one discovers a territorial border where the influence of Les
Halles, which gets progressively weaker the further one progresses towards
the north, is exerted along various secondary routes, generally oriented

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south-west to north-east, such as the Rues Rousseau and Tiquetonne, the

Rue du Jour continued in the passage de la Reine de Hongrie, the Rues
Mauconseil and Franaise. The area includes both a particularly miserable
residential part and those renowned restaurants which form the pole of
attraction for the rich tourism of Les Halles; an intense activity in food
retailing and an important administrative center (Htel des Postes, the
Centre de l'E.D.F., on the Rue Mauconeil, many schools). These elements
entail a considerable difference between the diurnal and nocturnal
ambiance. At night it is in this area that almost all the different
entertainments of Les Halles are concentrated, in the traditional, bourgeois
sense of this term. [...]

PLAN #2: LES HALLES INTERNAL CURRENTS AND EXTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

The zone of central interference, the turntable of the different ambient

directions of Les Halles is, as we have pointed out, the Bourse du
Commerce-Place des Deux-cus complex. This area is found at the
western extremity of the block constituted by the juxtaposition of the large
pavilions of the Halles Centrales. But since these edifices do not act as a
link, but on the contrary as a break, the Rue Carme which traverses them
longitudinally does not participate in this relation.
The different directions which intersect at this turntable strongly affect the
path any individual or group will, with apparent spontaneity, follow inside as
well as outside Les Halles.

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According to the theory of concentric urban zones, Les Halles belongs to

the transitional zone of Paris (social deterioration, acculturation and the
intermixing of population making the environment propitious to cultural
exchanges). One knows that in the case of Paris this concentric division is
complicated by an east-west opposition between the predominantly popular
and bourgeois quarters, business or residential. South of the Seine the line
of rupture is formed by the Boulevard Saint-Michel. North of the Seine it
deviates slightly towards the west and then passes along the Rue Croixdes-Petits-Champs, the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires and their
prolongations. It is at the western limit of Les Halles that the Ministre des
Finances, the Bourse and the Bourse du Commerce form the three points
of a triangle whose center is occupied by the Banque de France. The
institutions concentrated in this restricted space turn it, practically and
symbolically, into the defensive perimeter of capitalism's smartest
neighborhoods. The projected displacement of Les Halles to the outskirts of
the city will entail a new blow to popular Paris, which has for a century now
been constantly exiled, as we know, to the suburbs.
As opposed to this, any solution aimed at creating a new society requires
that this space at the center of Paris be preserved for the manifestations of
a liberated collective life. One must profit from the blow to practicalalimentary activity and must encourage large-scale development of those
tendencies towards constructional play and mobile urbanism which have
emerged 'in the icy water of egotistical calculation.' The first step,
architecturally, would obviously be to replace the current pavilions with an
autonomous series of small Situationist architectural complexes. Among
these new architectures and on their peripheries, corresponding to the four
zones we have envisaged here, ought to be built perpetually changing
labyrinths, and this with the aid of more adequate objects than the fruit and
vegetable panniers which make up the sole barricades of tod.
Given the brutalizing effect maintained by today's radio, television, cinema
and the rest, the extension of leisure under another regime will call for a
much doughtier response. Should the Paris Halles have survived until such
time as these problems will be posed by everyone, it would be fitting to try
to turn them into a theme park for the ludic education of workers.
EDITORIAL NOTE: This study is incomplete on several fundamental points,
principally those concerning the ambiant characteristics of certain barely
defined zones. This is because our collaborator was subject to police
harrassment in light of the fact that since September, North Africans have
been banned from the streets after half past nine in the evening. And of
course, the bulk of Abdelhafid Khatib's work concerned the Halles at night.
After being arrested twice and spending two nights in a holding cell, he
relinquished his efforts. Therefore the present the political future, no less
may be abstracted due to considerations carried out on
psychogeography itself.

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