aside from the Eiffel Tower and the Tour Montparnasse, there isn't much of what you could call a skyline in Paris, which makes it a bit of an oddity among world capitals these days. not much of one in the downtown, anyway, but a dogged investigator continuing west along the avenue that we traced earlier, from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe, will come to the purpose-built business center of the city known as La Défense. this area, home to numerous skyscrapers housing many of France's commercial giants, sits exactly on the line described by the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, which line is given the title of Axe historique (Historical Axis).
La Défense seems a strange title, inviting many visitors to assume that the area has a militaristic purpose, but it actually takes its name from a statue called La Défense de Paris, an 1883 monument to the soldiers of the Franco-Prussian War. in the late 1950s, the government decided to develop La Défense as a business district and high-rises began to spring up along both sides of a wide central walkway or esplanade known as le Parvis.
a view down Le Parvis from La Défense's west end, revealing some of the high-rise office buildings to either side, and the Arc de Triomphe off in the central distance along the Axe historique. further along this line, though not visible in this picture, lie the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and the Louvre, among other landmarks; below, Jill cools off by wading in a pool on the esplanade.
there are currently over 70 large buildings on the 77.5 acres of La Défense, with plans to bring that total to more than 80. with 150,000 daily workers in the area and 20,000 residents, attempts to beautify the concrete jungle include the installation of 60 modern art sculptures and monuments. it can be hard to tell which are which, or indeed where these end and the buildings begin: the most famous and certainly most impressive building in the whole complex is something of a monument in itself. The Grande Arche de la Fraternité, known simply as La Grande Arche, sits right on the Axe Historique and is truly monumental in both size and scope. additionally, like some of the other monuments in Paris, this one has already attained some measure of fame despite being less than 20 years old, having been featured in numerous movies (including of course, the great Bourne Identity).
the best of many sculptures at La Défense, this one cunningly disguised as a human thumb (perhaps a monument to the opposable digit?). ours are put up for size comparison and flank the inanimate one, if it's hard to tell. below, La Grande Arche de la Défense, the latest addition to the Axe Historique, and also its westernmost point.
La Grande Arche is almost perfectly cuboidal and is said to have been designed to resemble a tesseract, or four-dimensional hypercube (go on, look it up; i did). true or not, it certainly seems to be a modernized (and enlarged) mimic of the Arc de Triomphe, and is indeed a symbol of triumph, though not of the military kind. rather, La Grande Arche is a symbol of France's great achievements in world capitalism. though outwardly an ardent globalization protester, France is actually a huge success in worldwide business, as La Défense attests and La Grande Arche summarizes. La Défense is now Europe's largest business district and France is home to several of the world's biggest companies, including its second-largest retailer, Carrefour. but perhaps there are still bugs to be worked out of the French system: both sides of the impressive monument to its laissez-faire economics are crammed with government offices.
La Défense seems a strange title, inviting many visitors to assume that the area has a militaristic purpose, but it actually takes its name from a statue called La Défense de Paris, an 1883 monument to the soldiers of the Franco-Prussian War. in the late 1950s, the government decided to develop La Défense as a business district and high-rises began to spring up along both sides of a wide central walkway or esplanade known as le Parvis.
a view down Le Parvis from La Défense's west end, revealing some of the high-rise office buildings to either side, and the Arc de Triomphe off in the central distance along the Axe historique. further along this line, though not visible in this picture, lie the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and the Louvre, among other landmarks; below, Jill cools off by wading in a pool on the esplanade.
there are currently over 70 large buildings on the 77.5 acres of La Défense, with plans to bring that total to more than 80. with 150,000 daily workers in the area and 20,000 residents, attempts to beautify the concrete jungle include the installation of 60 modern art sculptures and monuments. it can be hard to tell which are which, or indeed where these end and the buildings begin: the most famous and certainly most impressive building in the whole complex is something of a monument in itself. The Grande Arche de la Fraternité, known simply as La Grande Arche, sits right on the Axe Historique and is truly monumental in both size and scope. additionally, like some of the other monuments in Paris, this one has already attained some measure of fame despite being less than 20 years old, having been featured in numerous movies (including of course, the great Bourne Identity).
the best of many sculptures at La Défense, this one cunningly disguised as a human thumb (perhaps a monument to the opposable digit?). ours are put up for size comparison and flank the inanimate one, if it's hard to tell. below, La Grande Arche de la Défense, the latest addition to the Axe Historique, and also its westernmost point.
La Grande Arche is almost perfectly cuboidal and is said to have been designed to resemble a tesseract, or four-dimensional hypercube (go on, look it up; i did). true or not, it certainly seems to be a modernized (and enlarged) mimic of the Arc de Triomphe, and is indeed a symbol of triumph, though not of the military kind. rather, La Grande Arche is a symbol of France's great achievements in world capitalism. though outwardly an ardent globalization protester, France is actually a huge success in worldwide business, as La Défense attests and La Grande Arche summarizes. La Défense is now Europe's largest business district and France is home to several of the world's biggest companies, including its second-largest retailer, Carrefour. but perhaps there are still bugs to be worked out of the French system: both sides of the impressive monument to its laissez-faire economics are crammed with government offices.
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