La Grande Arche

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This photograph was taken on a summer afternoon at La Défense /la defɑ̃s/, a huge, extremely chic business district just northwest of the Paris city limits, in the extension of the the axis of the Champs-Élysées and Louvre Museum.

One of the outstanding features of La Défense is the gigantic Grande Arche (“Great Arch”—inventive name, no?) /gʁɑ̃d aʁʃ/, an office building in the form of a huge, cube-like, monolithic hollow arch; it is the odd white structure in the background of this photograph (note the people on the steps at the base). It is constructed in a way that would allow it to be picked up as a unit, if a crane large enough to lift it existed. The Arch was built in 1989 as one of the late President Mitterrand’s monumental projects, and was designed by the architect Johan Otto Von Spreckelsen. It is almost perfectly aligned with the axes of the other arches (the Arc de Triomphe, for example) in Paris, with only a slight offset made necessary by the placement of the foundations. I believe most of the office space is allocated to one of the French government’s ministries. The twin towers that look like scaffolding are elevators that can take you to the top, for a small fee. The tent-like structure at the base is also a permanent feature of the building. This arch is quite large (it is a good 300 m away in this photograph) and easily visible from within Paris; you can see it from the Champs-Élysées, for example.

This photograph was taken from the northern corner of the enormous pedestrian plaza that more or less covers La Défense between the skyscrapers in the district (most of which are not visible here because they are behind the camera on either side). There are no cars, as they are required to circulate underground in this area. La Défense is also well served by public transportation. It represents some of the most expensive office space in Europe.

Photographed on August 27, 1999.