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What the Palais Royal has in common with the Barbican Centre

Built by Cardinal Richelieu in 1628, the Palais Royal is located in the first borough in Paris, and was first the place where king Louis XIV spent his childhood. 

Then, in 1692, this palace became the residence of the Orléans family.

In 1780, the duc de Chartres, in a lack of money period, decided to extend the palace by building all around the garden. The idea of that project was to make this place the attraction point of Parisian society. The architect, Victor Louis, planned a huge construction with commercial activities in the ground floor under a peripheral gallery, and on the upper floors urban houses. 

This building inspired a lot of post war architects like Fernand Pouillon. Indeed, this place was interesting because of the figure of an enclosure (buildings composed around a garden), and the proportions. That's this figure the post war architects tried to reinterpret during the Sixties, a kind of famous and generous utopia that consisted in creating a palace for the common people. The enclosure is also an opportunity of creating urban life by mixed use architectures.

The difficulty was how to compile an enclosure with the open plans of the modern movement. Fernand Pouillon did it perfectly in the real estate transaction in Boulogne Billancourt called "Le Point du Jour". The Barbican estate could be the equivalent example in Britain.

Edouard De La Salle

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La Cour du Maroc, les jardins d'Eole

The park is located in the 18th district of Paris; it was fitted out on the former railroad fallow land, the Court of Morocco. The name EOLE comes from the name of an association which vigorously defended the idea of creating a park, intending to embellish the district and give the inhabitants a place to gather round. It was opened to the public at the end of 2006.

The park was design by Michel and Claire Corajoud, two french landscapist in association with architects, sociologists and engineers. Michel Corajoud challenged the conception of urban landscape by asserting the idea that the work of an urban landscapist was not (like in the Seventies) to represent the idea of “nature” but that the interstitial space of cities had to be an introductory shape of the architecture, that there was a necessary continuity of intentions between buildings and outer spaces. So in many of his realizations he worked with architects like Renzo Piano for the international city of La Tête d’or in Lyon or Pierre Gangnet for the work on the left bank quays of Bordeaux and the Miroir d'eau.

The concept of the park was to create an open, long and narrow garden which would embrace both of the essentials aspects, historical (to not deny the railway, and to open a view of the town), and social (the need of a place in the district for the inhabitants, which can integrate the idea dear to the landscapist of “well-being”; the fact that the professionals—gardeners—also can participate to the evolution of the park by choosing to plant new species on dedicated platforms). There is also an ecological approach with the creation of varied circles, the conservation of the fauna, the management of the water and the implementation of a High Environmental Quality approach for the construction of the buildings.

The shape of the park (long and narrow) offered to its designer the possibility to implant a wide range of landscape and equipments. Footbridge, staircase, banisters, wooden passageway allow distributing the various spaces of the gardens and offer several views of the environment. The different spaces of the park:

-A big esplanade at the same level as the street, always open, constitutes a link between the park and the district.

-A wooden platform with long wood tables and benches allows people to picnic.

- Below, a standing canal of aquatic vegetables and a garden of gravels for the enjoyment of children.

-Behind, a big meadow is separated from the part of the park reserved in services of management and guarding by a red screen (wall breakthrough) which allows transparency between the park and the railways. Above, a footbridge offers a panorama on the district and the railroads.

- A big stairway in the middle of the square allows reaching another part of the park which is constituted by a playground, a garden of the day-nursery, a sports terrace and a communal garden.

The complexity of the program and the variety of landscapes that create this park make it, for me, a contemporary and very urban place whilst being also a place of relaxation and pondering where I can easily feel the well-being. 

Chloé Richard

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Le Centre Pompidou

The Georges Pompidou Center

The Georges Pompidou Center is a building located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near the neighborhoods of «Le Marais» and «Les Halles».

It was designed by two famous architects: Italian architect Renzo Piano and British architect Richard Rogers, in the style of high-tech architecture.

In this building, there's the «Bibliothèque publique d'information», a big public library, The National Modern Art Museum which is the biggest museum of modern art in Europe. There's also a center for music and acoustic research: IRCAM.

The Georges Pompidou Center is also known as «Beaubourg» because of its location and was named after Georges Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974 who commissioned the building.

It was officially opened on 31 January 1977 by the President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

Several major exhibitions are organized each year on either the first or sixth floors. 

During the year 1969, Georges Pompidou had the idea of building a great cultural space in the center of Paris. It is located at Beaubourg in a place which is still the hole in «Les Halles».

George Pompidou wanted to have a cultural center that was a museum and also a center of creation. Therefore, he decided to call an international competition for the construction of the center. More than 650 projects were be discussed. The project of Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers won the competition in 1971.

They designed a huge building, it's a parallelepiped over 160 m long, 60 m wide and 40 m high. The colors of the metal tubes are painted with bright colors. In fact, each color beam corresponds to a well defined function:

- Blue for air conditioning,

- Green for fluids,

- Red for circulation and yellow for electricity.

The Georges Pompidou Center became both a place of culture, creation and information but also a piece of art in itself.

Adil Mnaouare

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The Montsouris Garden 

The Garden is in the south of Paris and was built at the end of the nineteenth century under the decision of Napoléon III and «Baron Haussmann ». The name “Montsouris” means literally «mousse’s mount»; it comes from when the place was unhealthy.

It is an English style garden whichis built upon ancient quarries and on the catacombs. That’s why there’s relief when you are walking the path. Since 1947, the garden has been the place in Paris where meteorological information is taken for the city.

The garden has an area of 15 hectares. There is a big pond with a waterfall in the centre of the garden, where you can see fish, turtles and many kinds of birds such as ducks and swans. You can also have a look at all the statues in place around the way of your walk (realised by Bouchard, Lipsi, Baucour…).There are approximately 1400 trees, some of which are very rare. There are three large lawn areas where people can play or rest.

There, you can meet the « cité universitaire » student’s in the afternoon, some play football, others read books. The parents and the children who live in the neighbourhood use the playground equipment activities for their youngest during the weekend (merry-go-round, pony, and many others). You can also meet people walking, doing yoga or resting on the grass.

In the summer, you can listen to an orchestra under the open pavilion, or assist in special events or just go out jogging.

The activities which take place in the garden have been linked to the district activity for a century. It’s the place where people meet or just take a moment alone to rest.

To put it in a nutshell, I would suggest you go there to see it for your own eyes and to spend a good time however you want.

Romain Comby 

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The park of Cormailles is located in the Ile-de-France region and in the department of Val-de-Marne. Since its creation by the landscape agency ter, this park has been a very attractive green place where all kinds of people mix. On January 21st, 2008, the Secretary of State for Ecology, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, awarded National Grand Prix for Landscape 2007 to the park of Cormailles.

The interest of this new green lung of the municipality of Ivry-sur-Seine settles in various scales: those of the big landscape, the park and the district and the garden. The members of the agency ter knew how to develop a locatable dynamics, a particular esthetics within its three respective dimensions.

In the city center, this park allies the freedom of raised lawns and peace of the thematic gardens. Several islands of greenery welcome the population: the garden of sand, garden of vineyards or rose garden, or still solarium, gardens of schools, green beach. But the park of Cormailles also proposes a multitude of activities. In the course of the channel, each can come to discover sprays, detached houses of welcome(reception) and gliding area. Further, they are games of climbing and slides.

The belvedere’s top peaks up to 15 m on the hill of Lilacs. Halfway up is the solarium. The terrace of the square Gosnat offers a plunging view on the park, in 3,5m of height. Finally, the immense lawn or the « green beach » immortalizes the engineering of the place which is this horizontality appropriate to the geography of the alluvial plain of the Seine.

I have been to this park several times, it in various circumstances, various contexts: these experiences(experiments) made me want to share the discovery of this urban space which is at the same time emotional and scientific.

Camille Lefebvre

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I would like to tell you about a peaceful place in Paris : THE SWEDISH CULTURAL CENTER.

It is located in the Marais, in the third arrondissement. The building was designed by a Venician architect at the end of XVIe century. It’s a « hôtel particulier ». The building is located between the entrance court the « cour d’honneur » and the garden behind it.. This particular architecture makes the swedish cultural center a very quiet place where neighbors come to have a great time. It was established to promote sustainability, and to develop franco-swedish relations across a wide variety of cultural contexts. It contains a museum, theater, library, swedish cafe and also five studios for artists and swedish researchers. They arrange many different kinds of events such as concerts, art exhibitions and swedish language courses.

I would like to tell you more about the popular : « café suèdois » where you can enjoy a swedish « fika » (coffe, buns and cakes) and other swedish delicacies. This cafe is a very nice place especialy during the summer because of the terrace in the paved courtyard you can also take a walk in the beautiful little garden where you can rest, take a nap or read your favorite book on the bench of your choice.

I like this place because it’s a very beautiful place, in a very nice area in the center of Paris. There is a lot of other things to do in the neighborhood, for example, if you like « hotel particuler » you can continue your visit to the Archives Nationales or eat a delicious falafel in the Jewish part of this arrondissement.

Elie Teillaud

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Les Arches, Issy les Moulineaux

The « arches » are located in Issy les Moulineaux, a south west suburb of Paris.

The city council decided in 1996 to use the empty space under the RER C viaduct, by thinking of a new program, mixing sports and culture. They created 30 artist studios, a climbing club, a small animation cinema and a house for the district associations. The agency Dubosc and Landowski were in charge of designing the project. The Arches were built in 2001 and got a regional prize for their urban quality.

The 24 buildings are constructed with a mix of wood steel and glass, and really fit well with the massive stone bridge and their surrondings. If the exterior looks modest, the interior is more impressive, specifically in the climbing rooms, were the huge climbing walls follow the shape of the arches.

Every year the artists organise a visit of their studios, and present their works in a friendly atmosphere.

These buildings are a great example of the transformation of an empty and disused space into a friendly and nice place.  It also shows how smart design can change the atmosphere of a whole district by giving it a strong identity. The arches are now a very important place for the city because they create new interactions beetween the people of the district and a new special place in the city.

Maxime Pierdait

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AS Architecture-Studio: The National Institute of Judo and Novancia Business School in Paris

AS Architect Studio, an agency not like the others,  is committed to society. Created in Paris in 1973, located in 12 th district at 10 rue Lacuée, today it counts 12 associated architects and about 150 other people : architects, town planners and designers of 25 different nationalities.

This agency has won competitions, realized and renewed numerous symbolics buildings, as the realization of the church Notre-Dame de l'Arche de l'Alliance in 1998.

The National Institute of Judo in Paris, developed by this Agency, was born in 2001, it took it about 2 years to build this sports emblem of French judo, in partnership with the French Judo Federation and Sofracim as client.

This sports facility is open to the public and is equipped with a dojo, bedrooms, a hall, and small offices. The building was built on the street corner, between the beltway and the avenue Carries de Châtillon in 14th arrondissement, two combined but very different entities in their geometry were accomplished conscientiously.

There also is a bar in the hotel and from the HQ of the FFDJ you can see the omnisport room trough a wide dome . The plan and the wooden skeleton shows us the complexity of the project. The building is mainly made of dark concrete that appears smooth and ondulate, its dark color and those big bands makes to the whole project appear impressive and massive. 

1st Building " The Dome”, based on a more economic wooden industrial Skeleton, mega-beams in BLC to cut in several pieces were transported at night, and assembled on-the-spot; it represents 24000 m² surface of floor.

2nd Building " The Bar – Helm”, is very rangy, with his facades and walls tinted deep gray. This complex of 2200 m ² consists in particular of the HQ of the FFDJ but there also is a multiple program: dojo, hotel, surface commercial and the restoration. 

This new facility has for vocation to welcome competitions of any levels as well as mass training, training courses or initiations to judo. This Institute of Judo perfectly reflects the style of the Federation. A building which makes the unanimity with its public.

“The project is: at once educational (training contractors), economic (the denser fabric of franciliennes companies), scientific (advance knowledge in entrepreneurship), cultural (developing entrepreneurial culture of young people and adults) social (open to many especially through learning, the ability to perform as a contractor)”. Anne Stéfanini, Director of the school.

Located in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris in rue Armand Moisant Street near Montparnasse subway station, this building was born in 1908, former building ship classified by France. Novancia Business School of the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIP) underwent an extension in 1954 and a renovation and a restructuring in 2007 by Agency AS. Architecture Studio. The project was delivered in January, 2011 (5 years of construction site). 23 plots of land were assembled to create this school.

Their extension aligns itself with the haussmannian buildings by using a yellow color, after the crossroads the façade curves in front of Antoine Bourdelle museum and the color red comes to bound the courtyard. The old building of the twentieth century which was kept, has faced a revival which at the moment, receives 1555 students in a total surface of 22 600 m² parkings included (+ 3000 m² September 2012). The school consists of 5 floors and 2 basements.

The institute asserts its modernity while interacting with the 1908 building, whose characteristics are entirely kept. Outside we find an innovative, contemporary and colorful look that you can admire in a 380° line of sight because the building is on a Parisian street corner. Whereas, inside we have an architectural contrast between old and modern ambiances.

This project is characterized by a purified outline and glass facades made up of vertical colored shutters with shades of yellow and red : a slight touch of light games in connection with its environment. Their position can be switched and according to each season; either they let sunbeams in or they prevent them from entering the building. It was led by an HEQ approach (High Environmental Quality). Screen and chromaticism are derived from a mathematical equation; 7 colors, 4 patterns on the front and back, 7 different heights.

The school was designed as a spacious business meeting place for students, faculty, contractors and staff. You can observe two distinct spaces : the working space (auditorium with 250seat, 3 lectures halls, 40 classrooms, 13 computer rooms housing and a library); and the living space (sports hall, cafeteria, meeting area “bamboo square” and reception hall).

The indoor composition is generated by an atrium that serves all rooms, the extension and the existing horizontally by corridors and vertically by elevators and the big staircase in the center of the project. The meeting space is planted with bamboo. A wooden shell surrounding the auditorium materializes within the institution. The former entrance to the school preserved and mosaics were restored. The atrium is used as a buffer space for its thermal and acoustic qualities. The roof is built with a material called ETFE. This is a flexible and inflatable material into which air is injected. This renovation project is a symbol of the Parisian landscape well designed by the agency AS.

Clara Chalco

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The Panoramic view from the Lanterne at Parc de Saint Cloud

The Saint Cloud's Park is a huge natural place not far from the borders of Paris.

This a park full of History, where Queens and Kings spent vacation time in their palaces. Napoleon Bonaparte was made Emperor there. But for Parisians and people who live in the suburbs it's much more.

The low part of the park is a big garden design by Le Notre, the famous landscapist. So it's a classical French garden, which looks like the Versailles' gardens. You can go jogging, admiring the wonderful fountains, the big trees. It's a peaceful place which seems to be far away from the cars, the metro and the stressful people.

But this park is also a varied place with a lot of differents atmospheres. The higher part is a forest, where sometimes you can lost yourself, there is no one, no path. This is my favorite part of the park. I like to go their in summer with friends to have a pic-nic on the green grass and then take a sun bath. In this part of the park there is a place that we call the Lanterne. To go there it's not easy, it's the upper place, you have to « climb » a lot but when you arrive you have one of the most beautiful views of the capital. You can see most of the famous monuments. This is a very magical place, every time I go there I am captivated by Paris, I don't know if Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, but when I see this I can say that it might be possible.

And maybe I forgot to say that of course to go to St-Cloud's Park, and enjoy this view it's totally free (you only have to pay your metro ticket), so you must go there !

Carolina Meneszes Ferreira

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O’PARIS

Everyone knows Paris and its symbol the Eiffel Tower. In fact, today when we talk about Paris, le Sacré Cœur – Montmartre, le Louvre, Orsay, Saint Michel, l’île de la cité, Notre Dame-de-Paris, le Moulin Rouge and more come immediately to mind. Every guide shows the same monuments. But Paris is unique because it also has a wealth of different points of view for observing differently its beauty. It’s the multitude of unusual places far from of the tumult, Tourist buses and charmless restaurants. There is a place, which for me, is one of the most beautiful in Paris. It gives you a new point of view, a new light.

The coffee restaurant O’Paris is in the 20th administrative subdivision of Paris and more specifically at the 1 rue des Envierges. It is in the heights of the park of Belleville. It’s for me one of the most beautiful views of Paris. The particularity of this cafe is the incredible view of the city and the park.

We are totally submerged in Paris and its beauty.

We can see a lot of famous buildings but from another view, in the distance and with a typical landscape of the true Paris. The Eiffel Tower, Beaubourg are visible in the unobstructed view.

The specific character of the place is the combination between the park, the city and the bar. In summer we can rest on the grass of the park of Belleville. After we can take a beer in the park or in the bar and thrive on the view all day. For dinner the sunset is fabulous watched from the restaurant O’Paris.

Here we are completely cut off from the agitation, cars are rare. We just relax and enjoy the place and the horizon. I recommend this bar/this place because it’s one of my favorite places in the centre of Paris and I love the view, the neighbourhood with its street artists and the mood.

Marie Peno Castro

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La Manufacture des Œillets

Here we are in the lastest years of XIXth century, Charles Bac established a steel inkwell factory in Ivry sur Seine wich is a city near Paris, south of the thirteenth district. After 10 years he decided to change the location. So the factory became a oeillet’s factory - steel rings used for surround hole in textile industry. This is why we call it the Manufacture des Œillets.

In 1905, the factory was bougth by United Shoe, an American firm specialised in machine for Shoes industry. It was useful for them to extend the factory and modernise it because of the European industry revolution.

The project was entrusted to the engineer Paul Sée. The construction started in 1913 whis the «american building» which is a example of american new vision of industry architecture. It also looks like the first United Shoe factory in Beverly, United States.

However, unlike plant Beverly, in reinforced concrete, the Ivry plant has a steel frame with brick filling. This architecture is undecorated, folded with the requirements of production, remains one of the first manifestations of functionalism in France . 

United Shoe then imported France's paternalistic methods to Beverly in 1930, the company’s employees enjoyed significant advantages, thanks to social works that society has created for them : allotments, mutuality, compensation fund, family pension and finally substantial extra pay.

During the XXth century the factory continued to produce oeillets until its decline in 1980s. 

In the last years of 1980s half of the american building was sold to a property developer who transformed those studios in a new form of housing : the lofts. Lofts are all reserved for artistic people, like architects, designers, and painters. 

In 1996, the hall, the U.S. building and the gatehouse were included in the supplementary inventory of historic monuments.

The other part was sold to the French government for being transformed into an art school : «les arts décoratifs» - unfortunately this moved into Paris in 2001, so now it is a designer and architect assistant school call EPSAA. The big hall was converted into a repetition hall for the Theatre de l’Odeon.

In 2011 the city of Ivry sur Seine bought the third floor of the school.  

Every year, during the third week end of september the people living here organise a festival called «porte ouverte», and the artist who live there open their apartments to the public to show their interiors.

Felix Pants

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François-Mitterrand Library

If you walk along the 13th arrondissement of Paris, near the shore of the Seine, you will find this great building; The François-Mitterrand Library, the main site of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF).  It was built in 1993 by the architect Dominique Perrault. 

To introduce you to this modern building, I would like you to know some points of it history.  In 1989 there was a contest with the purpose of constructing the most modern library of the world (as announced the president of the French Republic, François Mitterrand).  The members of the jury had a clear idea, they chose unanimously the project of the French architect Dominique Perrault.

The building that Perrault worked on, consist of four 79 metres tall angular towers that are meant to represent four opened books. Each tower was named differently, in order to highlight the fact that there are four separated areas: Tower of the times, Tower of the laws, Tower of the numbers and Tower of the letters.

As soon as you enter, you see thousands of books, from all over the world, about every subject you can imagine, ranging from science to literature without forgetting philosophy or architecture.

If you keep going in, you will also find a hugepublic reading room, which can be used by everybody. It incredibly  has 1.600 places for reading. On the other side, there is another reading room reserved to scientists and investigators, that can hold more than 2000 people studying at the same time.

These for towers delimitate a big square. This space creates the cloister-like atmosphere that is commonly associated with reading and meditation. In the middle of the square there is a wonderful garden with lots of white pines that is not available for the public to visit. Nevertheless, you can enjoy it from the interior of the building, thanks to the glass structure that reinforces the sensation of calmness and local serenity.

Inside this animated place, the students have access to a multitude of documentary sources (books, forms, cartels, sonorous documents ...).  It also has the two famous big celestial and terrestrial globes of Coronelli, which date from the 17th Century. They can both be admired by visitors in exhibitions that are organized very often.

Outside the library, there is a great atmosphere: teenagers skating and biking, families going for a walk, people seated at the cafes…

Perrault's projects are known worldwide for three main characteristics: the lack of decoration, the importance given to the urban environment and the tendency to the use of metallic surfaces, walls made of concrete or glass.

To sum up, this library is one of the principal Parisian architecture projects of the last 25 years. It is a very useful place for students and researchers, since they can find all the information needed. For visitors, it is also a nice place to visit, see exhibitions and enjoy everything that this wonderful place can offer. I highly recommend a walk around this neighbourhood, it will be a great experience for sure! 

Some useful information:

François-Mitterrand Library Quai François-Mauriac 75706 Paris Cedex 13

Opening hours: on Mondays, 2 p.m. – 8 p.m. (Research Library) Tuesday – Saturday, 9 a.m. – 8 p.m. On Sundays, 1 p.m. – 7 p.m.

  Guided tours of François-Mitterrand Library Discovering the library’s history, the building’s architecture and the reading rooms. (French tours)

  How to arrive. Transports

Bus: 89, 62, 64, 132, 325.

Underground : Line 6 - Quai de la Gare, Line 14 - Bibliothèque François Mitterrand

RER: RER C - Bibliothèque François Mitterrand.

Elena Doblas Prieto

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The Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation is dedicated to the 200,000 people deported from Vichy to the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. It is behind Notre Dame on the eastern tip of the Île de la Cité. It was designed by French modernist architect, writer, teacher, and town planner Georges-Henri Pingusson. It is inaugurated by Charles de Gaulle in 1962.

Pingusson wanted its long and narrow subterranean space to convey a feeling of claustrophobia. Concrete blocks mark the narrow entrance to the crypt, which contains the tomb of an unknown deportee killed at the Neustadt camp.

In the year of its opening, a brochure produced by the French survivors group "Reseau de souvenir" described the memorial as a crypt, "hollowed out of the sacred isle, the cradle of our nation, which incarnates the soul of France, a place where its spirit dwells."

Fragments of two poems are inscribed on the walls. The first consists of the last stanza of a poem written by Robert Desnos, himself a deportee, pseudonymously and published "underground" in Paris, on Bastille Day 1942, "The Heart that Hated War".

I have dreamt so very much of you,

I have walked so much,

Loved your shadow so much,

That nothing more is left to me of you.

All that remains to me is to be the shadow among shadows

To be a hundred times more of a shadow than the shadow

To be the shadow that will come and come again into

your sunny life.

A circular plaque on the floor of the underground chamber is inscribed: "They descended into the mouth of the earth and they did not return." Along both walls of the narrow chamber are 200,000 crystals with light shining through meant to symbolize each of the lives lost. At the end of the tunnel is a single bright light. Either side of the chamber are small rooms that seem to depict prison cells. Opposite the entrance is a stark iron gate overlooking the Seine at the tip of the Île de la Cité.

A "flame of eternal hope" burns and The Tomb of the Unknown Deportee bears the inscription: "Dedicated to the living memory of the 200,000 French deportees sleeping in the night and the fog, exterminated in the Nazi concentration camps."

At the exit to the chamber is the injunction, engraved, found at all sites memorializing the victims of the Nazis: "Forgive but never forget."

Marine Laly

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SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR BRIDGE

This 304 meter long bridge responds to an urban necessity which is giving to the Seine an important role in the city, it is in continuity with the river promenade and connects the National Library of France and Bercy Park to the river by passing over major traffic routes.

It binds strongly architecture and technics. On a clear span of 190 meters, it consists of two synergistic elements, a very slender bow and a catenary suspension which work with and balance each other. The meeting of the two curves (the arch and the catenary) forms a lens that is a unique public space, suspended in the middle of the river. This structure was chosen for its spatial potential and its efficiency, guaranteeing sturdiness and lightness. Poetics is established, which gives the freedom to pedestrians passing up or down to the water, to choose their own routes and discover the site; because the top of the bridge offers a panoramic view of historical Paris, while its lower part is a place which invites the walker to take a break halfway. It is occasionally animated by temporary facilities like kiosks and bookshops, covered by the central deck. It is also an ideal platform to watch performances on the water.

The elegance of the bridge lies in the unity between the structure and the various paths available to the public. Thanks to its materials and construction processes, it represents a witness of its time with its technological modernity that characterizes many bridges in Paris. That's why I advise you to visit it after seeing the other bridges, to appreciate the historical continuity of the city.

Abdellah Bouchafaa

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    Arche de la Défense

“La Grande Arche de la Fraternité” , known as the common name of the Arche de la Défense or Grande Arche is a monument located in the business district of La Defense Puteaux (west of Paris) . One of the most important business centers in Europe, comparable to the City of London, this consists of a set of towers and skyscrapers, some of them belonging to large national and global companies, others residential.

Johann Otto von Spreckelsen and Erik Reitzel designed the Arche de la Défense in 1989 as a twentieth-century version of the Arc de Triomphe : a monument to humanity and humanitarian ideals. Built in the east- west axis of the Parisian history, she joined other monuments such as the Arc de Triomphe , the Obelisk, the gardens of the Palais des Tuileries and the Arc de Triumph carousel. Defense and the Arc, on a hill, symbolize the power and engineering industry in France. It also offers a breathtaking view of the Champs –Elysées. This slightly irregular cube 112 meters high by 106 wide, is made of white and gray marble, concrete, aluminum and glass. Its invention, the gigantic and original shape seems inhuman, but this is precisely what makes it beautiful and unusual to the viewer. L' Arche de la Défense ( South and North wall ) currently hosts some of the offices of the Ministry of Ecology , Sustainable Development and Energy . The roof is not accessible to visitors. L' Arche de la Défense is a monument that symbolizes the district of La Defense. Many events, ephemeral exhibitions, markets take place under the Arche de la Defense. This is a busy, popular and lively place. It is very easy to get there, there is the subway, RER, transiliens and trains. There is also a large shopping center "The Four Times" under the arch with more than 230 shops on four levels. Making it a must-see in Paris, near the Champs Elysées and easily accessible for everyone.

Mélanie LE MORVAN

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Meaux: the cathedral of Saint-Etienne and Bossuet's garden

Saint-Etienne Cathedral

Construction of the Saint-Etienne’s Cathedral began in 1175 (12th century) and finished four centuries later, in 1540 (16th century).

The main architects were Gautier de Vainfroy and Jean-Camille Formigé, who removed the Roman Catholic cathedral in Gothic Style.

This is a national monument of France which is located in the town of 

The cathedral rises to a height of 48 meters; inside, the vaults at the choir rise to 33 meters.

The main materials are stone, iron and glass for stained glasses.

You can ask the tourism desk (inside the cathedral) if you can go to the top of the cathedral, you will discover an amazing view of Meaux and its surroundings. Surroundings are mostly composed of shops, cybercoffes, fast foods and restaurants. You feel that monument is the heart of the town, all the city is built all around this historical heart.

Meaux is fifty  kilometers away from Paris, about thirty minutes by train from « Gare de l’Est »; then, you stop at « Meaux Gare » and walk for ten minutes to arrive at the cathedral. You can also go there by car, count approximately thirty minutes too.

Behind the cathedral is Bossuet’s garden, the name of wich refers to the historical bishop. This garden is a pleasant walk with a fountain, statues and all types of flowers to be discovered. Below are some pictures.

Mélanie Mauger

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Place de la République

The Place de la République is located in the east center of Paris, between the 3rd, 10th and 11th arrondissements.

Nowadays, it is an important and famous place but it has not always been so. In the begining of the 19th century it was part of the Charles V’s surrounding wall. It is in 1883 that the big statue of Marianne has been installed, in order to glorify the Republique. That is why the square is named « Place de la République ».

Because of its name, and also because of its large size (280x120m), a lot of demonstrations and marches took place here.

            The square is surrounded by Haussmanian buildings. We can notice the four main boulevards and the avenue starting from the place. The ground floor is mostly occupied by shops, restaurants and bars. The other floors are reserved to flats, for the exception of one big hotel. We may add that the barracks of the Garde Républicaine goe along a big part of the north side of the square.

Until now, the square was divided into two parts which were circled by streets. There were a lot of cars, and consequently a lot of noise. But it was still a great place to my mind. I like the area, with its many little streets, its Parisian cafes, the proximity of Voltaire, Bastille and Belleville… But what is many more important are the quays of the Canal Saint-Martin. It is one of my favourite places in Paris.

The city council decided in 2008 to refurbish the area. The site stayed under construction from July 2011 to June 2013. The point was to give a new vision of this place. For years, the square had become only a crossroads. The government wanted to tranform it in a convivial, popular and pleasant space. The Trevelo & Viger-Kholer’s architects and urbanists agency won the contest. They created a very large and open space, with some kind of areas where you can do different activities. For exemple, there is a place where spurts of water come out of the ground. Or there is a area with tables and chairs that you can move, provided for everyone… I think it is a really nice square today !

First picture : Place de la République in 2011. Second one : Place de la République in 2013.

Camille Offret