La Grande Arche

Paris, France
La Grande Arche is the paramount landmark, the crowning monument of Pariss Place de la Defense. It is the eastern terminus of the monumental Voie Triomphale Triumphal Way, extending from the Cour Carree of the Louvre through the Tuileries Gardens and down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe the axis then continues for almost 4 miles 6 kilometers along the Avenue de la Grande Armee and through La place de la Concorde to cross the Pont de Neuilly and enter La Defense. La Defense is dominated by ultramodern geometric office or apartment towers, 30 stories high and more, apparently randomly arranged over a large, paved plane. It also boasts conference centers, an exhibition hall, gardens, and a massive public pedestrian open space, beneath which is Pariss largest shopping complex, restaurants, and a cinema. It was conceived in 1931, when a competition was held to extend the Louvre Champs Elysees axis. None of the thirty-five classical revival or modernist entries from French architects was realized. The aim had been to continue the French tradition of innovative architecture but for various reasons, no doubt including the 1930s Depression and World War II, little of the kind was built. In 1951, La Defense was zoned for commercial use, and seven years later a specifically appointed agency produced a thirty-year master plan revised in 1964, it provided for twenty towers, each of twenty-five stories. Developers and the public disagreed over taller buildings, but the mediocre developmentsomeone has described them asall of the postmodernist