La Ruche

La Ruche (literally the beehive) is an artist's residence in Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France.

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Located in Montparnasse’s "Passage Danzig," in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, La Ruche was an old three-storey circular structure that got its name because it looked more like a large beehive than any dwelling for humans. Originally a temporary building designed by Gustave Eiffel for use as a wine rotunda at the Great Exposition of 1900, the structure was dismantled and re-erected as low-cost studios for artists by Alfred Boucher (1850–1934), a fireman and sculptor, who wanted to help young artists by providing them with shared models and with an exhibition space open to all residents. As well as artists, La Ruche became a home to the usual array of drunks, misfits or most any penniless soul needing a roof over their head, showed up.

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At La Ruche, the rent was dirt cheap and no one was evicted for non-payment. When hungry, many would wander over to artist Marie Vassilieff's soup kitchen (more gently called her "Cantine") for a meal and conversation with fellow starving artists. The Russian painter Pinchus Kremegne got off the train at the Gare de l'Est with three rubles in his pocket. The only words in French he knew was the phrase "Passage Danzig" but that was all he needed to get him there.

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In the history of mankind, like Montparnasse itself, few places have ever housed such talent as could be found at La Ruche. At one time or another in those early years of the 20th century, Guillaume Apollinaire, Ossip Zadkine, Moise Kisling, Marc Chagall, Nina Hamnett, Fernand Leger, Jacques Lipchitz, Pinchus Kremegne, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, Chaim Soutine, Robert Delaunay, Amedeo Modigliani, Constantin Brancusi, and others, called the place home. Today, works by these desperately poor residents sell in the millions of dollars.

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La Ruche went into decline during World War II, but by the time of the 1968 real estate boom, it was threatened with demolition by developers. With the support of luminaries such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Alexander Calder, Jean Renoir, and Ren? Char, new management with a preservation mission took over in 1971 turning it into a collection of working studios.

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See also: Le Bateau-Lavoir, in Montmartre, Paris.

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Montparnasse: Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centered on the intersection of the Boulevard de Montparnasse and the Boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse was absorbed into the 14?me arrondissement in 1860....

Paris, France: REDIRECT Paris...

Gustave Eiffel: Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (December 15, 1832 – December 27, 1923; French pronunciation in IPA, in English usually pronounced in the German manner ) was a French engineer and architect, specialist of metallic structures. The name of Eiffel was adopted by one of his German ancestors in the earl...

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