His boundless kindness was only matched by his wrath whenever he discovered things in a corner that someone had left lying around, or when he was asked to intervene -when, in his opinion, the burden should fall onto the Comrade Ruis’ shoulders, with whom Maurice indulged into a few drinks when they could. Those two were a fine team whose relationship was as complicit as sometimes stormy -firedamp crisis that fooled no one. This hive of worker bees was supervised by Gérard Fournier, with the indispensable help of his two successive secretaries whom I had the pleasure of knowing during my visits at Espace Niemeyer, Martine Milekitch and Lila Larini. Both were the Temple’s true guardians of its keys, always capable to find solutions and always friendly and benevolent.

So this is how my memories gently come to my mind, and flow over the production of this Trois Traces d’Oscar exhibition (Three Traces of Oscar).

"Three Traces of Oscar", which almost could have been "Four Traces of Oscar". Indeed, in the panorama of his French Heritage (which includes the famous Le Volcan Cultural Center in Le Havre, a building by definition excluded from the planned Three Traces series since not being located in the Paris vicinity), the Brazilian architect left behind him four achievements in the Paris Region, and not three. Alongside the Place du Colonel Fabien building, the Daily "L'Humanité" Headquarters in St-Denis and that of the Labor Exchange in Bobigny, there exists as well a duo of office premises, Les Olympiades : a result of Niemeyer's collaboration with French architect Jean-Maur Lyonnet (who, like Jean Deroche and Paul Chemetov, worked under the leadership of Niemeyer in the latter’s Paris Region projects. Lyonnet notably participated in the construction of the PCF Headquarters, and that of "L'Humanité"). Les Olympiades have been standing in Fontenay-Sous-Bois since 1991. Little known, these buildings are nevertheless an integral part of the Niemeyer Heritage in the Paris Region.