Paris - La Géode - 19e

Plate XCVI – La Geode …

So much of what you’ll see in Paris is old. It’s not that there is nothing new or modern about the city. Whether your idea of 'new' is Sacré Couer, Pei’s Pyramid, Centre Pompidou, the Grande Arche, or even a belief that with Sarkozy’s vision of a Grand Paris will come an entirely new modernity, much of the charm of the city is the way that the ancient, the merely old and the new live so compatibly side-by-side. Paris has carefully and guardedly managed to avoid obscuring its heritage of beauty through meticulous city planning (starting perhaps with Hausmann’s strategic layouts), and our appreciation of all the city has to offer is the better for it. Simply compare the claustrophobia inducing twentieth century development of London and you’ll know what I mean.

Moving to the edges of the city’s north east is the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie better known simply as La Vilette. Apart from wanting to see the numerous permanent and temporary exhibitions I had another calling to this part of the city. My family name is Macdonald and coincidentally the Cité is found a few short metres away from a stretch of the greater Paris boulevard system known as Boulevard MacDonald. I was delighted to discover that the name means more to Parisians than hamburgers and fries! (It is of course the name of the Napoleonic Marechal, Étienne Jacques Joseph Alexandre MacDonald, 1st Duc de Taranto).

Set aside in 1979 as the world’s largest museum of science and technology, La Vilette is worthy of a couple of separate visits to take it all in. Amongst the attractions is the Imax theatre housed inside an eye catching thirty six metre diameter steel dome known as La Géode. The only Parisian cinema at the time showing this incredible format (how long before Imax 3D?) the dome is fabricated from some 6500 steel triangular plates.

With many of the exhibits aimed at the younger generation, and a plethora of thematic parks and gardens, La Vilette is rightfully a popular, but I thought somewhat underappreciated day out destination for the whole family.

Paris - Axe Historique - La Défense

Plate V - Grande Arche view of the Axe Historique …

If I have one recommendation for any first time visitor to Paris it is to start your visit, whether you are here for one day or several, with a familiarization viewing of the city from the top of the Grande Arche. Although I was to make several unforgivable (but enjoyable) ‘blunders’ in planning my city wanderings, you will truly get a feeling for the siting of everything you will see or want to see during your time here. This is to Paris, what the London Eye has become to that other nearby capital across the channel.

The almost nine and a half kilometer precision of the historical axis (and indeed Haussman’s city plans radiating from Etoile) becomes apparent with the view from here. Proceeding from La Défense along the Ave. de la Grande Armée, through the Arc de Triomphe, along the Champs Elysées, throught the third arch (du Carrousel) and onto the Louvre, you will also understand the axe’s other name the Voie Triomphale (Triumphal Way). Some slight deviations from perfection do exist, (I have previously mentioned the almost negligible 6.33 degree rotation of the Grande Arche) the axis having been planned along the center of Tuileries Gardens rather than the Vieux Louvre (as the old palace was called). Cleverly, Haussman placed Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel on the fulcrum point of the Tuileries Palace to Vieux Louvre axis, disguising the ‘fault’ of the join. Further sympathy to the axis was shown by I.M Pei in placing the equestrian statue of Louis XIV adjacent to his Pyramide in the Cour Napoléon of the Grande Louvre design – marking the furthest point of the axis.

Although I did not know it at the time of my visit, a secondary axis forms along the line of the Eiffel Tower, and the Tour Montparnasse. Notice the seemingly solid lower section of the Eiffel Tower in the picture, caused by the alignment of these two landmark city edifices. It was only while questioning the strange apparent solidity of the tower that I discovered how, through fortunate chance, I had captured this placement. It would seem however that nothing about Paris happens through mere chance.