Concrete passions
For photographer Laurent Kronental, there’s a certain magic in even the drabbest buildings. His photos reflect his fascination for unusual mass housing projects

That’s the City of Light? As you travel toward the French metropolis from Paris-Charles de Gaulle airports, you will pass lots of buildings made of concrete. Les grands ensembles, those sprawling apartment complexes on the outskirts of the city (photo: Les Arcades du Lac), house many poor and elderly people. Laurent Kronental photographed some of them in front of their postmodern abodes for his series “Souvenir d’un Futur,” creating powerful and subversively poetic images.