Hidden in plain sight: fake windows painted onto a building in Beaubourg
I was wandering around my neighborhood this morning taking pictures of a few pixel art mosaics I'd noticed recently when I noticed these fake windows painted onto a building that's situated in a little unnamed square facing the South-East corner of the Centre Pompidou, right at the corner of Rue Quincampoix and Rue Aubry le Bucher. I've walked by this spot literally hundreds of times and never noticed these before!
An old French couple walking by saw me pointing my camera upward and looked to see what I was photographing, and they were astounded; they'd never seen these window paintings before either, and I imagine they've lived in the neighborhood for decades. The old man remarked to his wife, "They must be new!" and she scolded, "Don't be silly, look how faded they are!" Haha. I'm tellin' ya, it always pays to look up! I've made a habit of looking up in random places for many years and I'm constantly surprised by neat stuff that would be easy to miss otherwise.
Here's a view from further away; you'd never know those windows were fake unless you really looked! Incidentally, above the lovely toilet paper artwork around the corner, there's a cute little pixel mosaic of a trash can, which is what originally brought me to this particular corner this morning.
Fake doorway on Rue Chapon
Photo gallery of weird public art all over Paris
Cannonball stuck in the Hôtel de Sens
Paris' coat of arms
Photo gallery of pixel art mosaics all over Paris
Le Centre Pompidou