President's message: Exploring Paris in April

I love Paris. As we all know, the capital of France is a renowned city for architecture. Celebrated architects that lived and worked here include Le Corbusier, Perrault and Nouvel. With its strong formal axes and spaces and numerous buildings by famous designers both historical and current, it is a city that never ceases to amaze and inspire. It's now April in Paris and the city is awash in spring rain, umbrellas, and bursting with blossoms. These days the City of Lights is also a verdantly green city - in both hue and sustainable tourism. The social infrastructures of Paris include various systems, engaged in initiating improvements in the living conditions of the people residing in the main city area and the countryside. The city's parks and a well-respected transit system are exceptional examples of this sophisticated infrastructure. With more than 400 parks and gardens covered by more than 480,000 trees, Paris is home to an increasingly diverse selection of flora and fauna in an ever-widening urban landscape. Of these parks and gardens, the capital now boasts 63 gardens that have been officially tagged "ecological green spaces." And new green spaces are continually being created, which differ from the more traditional tourist haunts. Most recently, the city opened the Jardins d'Ecole in the north and the Parc de Clichy-Batignolles Martin-Luther-King on the former railway grounds of Batignolles. Entire areas are being redeveloped to morph into eco-districts where the emphasis is on energy efficiency, reducing the carbon footprint and the development of renewable energy. Paris also has four botanical gardens and the city is peppered with community green spaces created by local inhabitants who strive to create gardening communities. Each district has its own major park with each park laid out in a different way - each with its own unique infrastructure. You easily note this in the range in city parks: The Arenes de Lutece contain some of the most important and best conserved remains from the Gallo-Roman era in Paris, while the Square Sarah-Bernhardt plays tribute to the city's most famous tragedy actress. In the Belleville park, the "Maison de l'air" (the house of air) offers its visitors a panoramic view of Paris as well as a meteorological station which gives real time information on air quality in the city. The station also supplies information on the history of the city's atmosphere, the role it plays and how best to protect it. Another celebrated park is the Promenade Plantee, an elevated urban expanse that is currently the only such park in the world, although plans are in effect for the New York City's High Line, another elevated public space. Once an abandoned railway viaduct, the weed infested space was transformed into the Promenade Plantee, known as the Coulee Vert, or the Green Flow, which runs almost the entire length of the 12th arrondissement. Pedestrians have a garden environment for their high-level walk and cyclists have a route at ground level. The arcades beneath the viaduct have been transformed into arts and crafts workshops. This section is called the "Viaduc des Arts." To travel to the multitude of parks in Paris, one can easily transverse the city using public transportation: the Paris Métro or Métropolitain. Notable for its station architecture, influenced by Art Nouveau, it has 16 lines, mostly underground, and a total length of 133 miles. Paris has the most closely spaced subway stations in the world, with 245 stations within the 41 square miles within the city. The Metro is also the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow with an average of 4.5 million passengers a day. Chatelet-Les Halles is often cited as the worlds' largest underground station. The efficient transport system of Paris has developed gradually from some of its earliest transportation routes, constructed after the Roman invasion of France in 52 BC. Rue Saint Jacques was the main Roman Road, which still exists today - a startling example of enduring infrastructure that has weathered the centuries. At this time of year especially, the City of Lights offers its adoring fans a lush homage to poetic and practical public space: from the striking Metro arches of the well-run transit system to the myriad of Springtime parks that range from the oldest - the Tuileries Gardens built in the 1600s to the largest - Parc de la Villette, "the urban park of the 21st century," created by the French-Swiss architect, Bernard Tschumi, and built on the site of the former national meat market - a highly successful urban redevelopment project. Sherida Paulsen, FAIA is the 2009 president of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, New York, N.Y.