(source: Stark)

A friend of mine on twitter posted this design proposal for the new tramway that was to be built in Bordeaux about a decade ago. The three renderings brought everything to light for me. This tram design embodies exactly what is rooted in Bordeaux's beauty as a city.

I've always foud it difficult to describe what makes Bordeaux so lovely to the eye. What makes me smile as I walk down its streets and how the city manages to so elegantly and effortlessly merge ancient and contemporary. But here it is. In one image it is all explained. It's like I had some sort of moment of truth.

Bordeaux straddles two skins - the material, physical and terrestrial skin along with the ethereal and atmospheric one. I walk down streets lined with buildings that seem to have emerged from the ground. There is this grounded nature to its 18th century architecture that makes the city appear as though only in this space could it have spawned. I can easily imagine the stones slowly and gently arising from the earth to create what's now known as Bordeaux. At the same time, with the help of the buildings' details - the iron palisades, the "macaron" figures carved into the stone, the light that drowns through the pierced streets, the large openings and vegetated banks of the Garonne - the sky and the ethereal plays its melodic notes throughout. 

Bordeaux converges these two contradictory elements. This tramway design does so as well. The bottom detail almost paradoxically fixes the tramway to the earth. While its glass container fills it with light and douses the spectators with the atmospheric bursts that characterize the city. 

Functionally, I can see why it was not chosen. The glass would be marked and scratched rapidly. Safety concerns would certain ensue. Dynamism could be a factor, amongst others. But for now, I'll just enjoy this gem of a design for what it is. The most representative drawing of why I love Bordeaux. 

Laterdays,

Pato