When I first arrived in Roubaix, an industrial city in northern France, it was its state of neglect that struck me most. Dilapidated façades everywhere, abandoned houses, makeshift windows, tags and murals. The city seemed true to its reputation for poverty and decline.
But little by little, I learned to look at it differently, a bit like one learns to look at a painting and, as time goes on, begins to notice things that weren’t visible at first glance. Splendid villas, grand townhouses, incredibly ornate façades. Roubaix began to take on a new dimension for me.
I started to appreciate its sumptuous past, that of what was once the richest city in France, still resisting time, demolitions, renovations, and the modernism that disfigured it.
Roubaix revealed itself to me as a sunken treasure that I gradually brought back to the surface.
It is through these façades—beautiful or ugly, but all of them moving to me—that I wanted to capture here.
Mr Wilde
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