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By Emily Clott, Class of 2012

Did you know that the Chicago Architecture Foundation offers French language tours? Our small but mighty group of certified French language docents, led by tour director James Harmon, is comprised of Jean Guritz, Adina Van Buren, Teresa Varlet, Claudia Winkler, Bill Shapiro, and Emily Clott.

While all docents endure the rigors of the docent training program, becoming a French language docent adds this further complication: creating a tour in a second language that requires specialized vocabulary yet is entertaining and enlightening for people who’ve come here from other lands.

The French language tour includes both historic and modern buildings. Tour Director Jim Harmon offers each docent the latitude to give the tour in their own way, as long as examples of Chicago Commercial, Art Deco, Modern, and Post-modern buildings are included. While my tour is a French version of the Evolution of the Skyscraper tour, other docents follow different routes and present different buildings during our two-hour time frame.

French speaking – from all over
Our tourees come not only from France, but from Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the francophone countries of Africa and the Middle East. We often have Americans hosting French-speaking friends in our groups, as well as American teachers of French who bring advanced students on tours to strengthen their listening and speaking skills.

Just as the accents of a Londoner and a Bostonian vary widely while both are speaking English, so do French speakers speak with many different accents and local vocabularies. French language docents have to understand and be understood by all of them. Our docents have been taught to speak Parisian-accented French, and all report that although they cannot always understand the tourees, the tourees seem to be able to understand their Parisian pronunciation just fine.

The French take great pride in their language, so it can be intimidating to speak French to native speakers who could turn out to be quite persnickety. Nevertheless, every one of us has found tourees to be grateful that we are making the effort to communicate with them in French. They help us out should we not know how to pronounce a particular architectural term or if we get our syntax confused. It helps that many terms we use (e.g. Art Déco, Beaux Arts, bas relièf, etc.) come from French, so we already know some of the vocabulary. Fun fact: Did you know that in French a sash window that can be raised and lowered is a fenêtre guillotine? Be careful, you might just lose your head!

One of the toughest challenges we face is translating dates during a tour. The year “1893” does not trip off the French tongue with quite the same ease as it does in English. Lots more words are involved. For example, 1893 in French is mille huit cent quatre-vingts treize…literally one thousand, eight hundred, eighty-thirteen.

Like our American tourists, knowledge of Chicago’s history varies widely. Canadians are often aware of Père Marquette and the voyageurs who explored the Great Lakes region. But tourees from France are not so well acquainted with Chicago’s history, although they might know about our gangster past, Michael Jordan, and Barack Obama! Those who studied architecture, engineering, or urban planning, however, know more about Chicago. We often hear that tourees are impressed with the beauty of our city, its blend of old and new architecture, and its cleanliness compared with other big cities.

French majors and more
Docents Claudia, Jean, Adina, and Emily majored in French in college, studied in France, and taught French. Jim, who learned French as a boy, worked in educational publishing; he lived in and traveled to francophone countries for his work. Teresa, who also gives Italian language tours, learned French when she met her husband; she lived in France for about ten years. They speak French at home as Teresa finds French easier to speak than English. She especially loves working with French families because, “French kids remain the best behaved and most interested in learning,” in her experience.

Many of us have led and hosted groups of students in exchanges between French and American schools, and we do all we can to keep up with the language as it evolves.

Not a single French language docent remembers a negative tour, but some experiences are extra-memorable. Jean remembers that prior to 2001, CAF only offered private tours in French. She was one of the docents leading the first public French tour the day before the 2001 Chicago Marathon. The tour had been advertised to French runners and their friends via e-mail as well as at a reception. Seventy people showed up, and we had just enough docents to make it work!

Mr. Mayor, if you please
Jim gave a tour in 2010 to the former mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, who was in Chicago for a conference of 200 international municipal officers hosted by then-mayor Richard M. Daley. Delanoë, whose background is in urban planning, was “…running around the Chicago model in the Railway Exchange Building lobby. He reminded me of a kid running around a Christmas tree,” Jim recalls.

The tour took place in two Chicago Police Department unmarked cruisers driven by plainclothes officers. It made eight stops and included sights from the Museum Campus to North Avenue Beach. Mayor Delanoë and his entourage were fully engaged, asking scores of questions.

Jim took up on the offer from Delanoë’s press agent to contact him the next time Jim was in Paris. He was given a personal tour of the grandiose reception rooms of l’Hôtel de Ville (City Hall), are normally only seen by VIPs.

Person to person
Former French language docent Bill Shapiro led typical walking tours downtown as well as tours for regional associations of architects similar to our AIA. A group of 50 architects from the Lyon region of France took the Farnsworth House tour. Marc Boxerman, who has a good knowledge of French, assisted Bill in giving the tour. Normally, Farnsworth House docents would give the tour, but because of the size of the group and the language issue, Bill and Marc conducted them in French. Bill also conducted a tour of major downtown architectural monuments for three officials of the French Ministry of Culture.

Jean particularly enjoys when serendipitous connections bubble up during a tour. While explaining Art Deco at the Field Building, she met a Belgian woman who lives in an Art Deco house. Another time, also at the Field, she learned that a touree had graduated from the same French school as did William LeBaron Jenny and Gustave Eiffel.

Jean also recalls a tour where a French couple said they had learned about CAF’s tours while watching television at home. It turns out that a French photographer accompanied Adina on one of her tours in 2010 for a television project called LaVieLaVille. Jean’s tourees had watched the finished product and sought us out.

Claudia uses French not only on CAF tours, but also at the Field Museum where she is a docent at the lobby exhibit of Sue the Dinosaur. French speakers are always surprised and delighted when an American addresses them in their own language.

Inspiring people to understand why design matters is our purpose. French language docents excel at achieving that mission across the language barrier and making our tourees feel welcome in our sweet home Chicago. As director Harmon explains, we are “…delighted to have the privilege of giving CAF’s French language tours, an activity that is the apogee of two of our fondest avocations: discussing architecture and interacting with the francophone world.”