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.