This tour will uncover the secrets of la Defense, the largest business district in Europe (38 million square feet of office, around seventy buildings and skyscrapers, five more major towers under construction). The promenade will you from the esplanade where the project started in 1958 up to unusual and unknown areas, monuments and gardens, with many significant anecdotes, from Napoleon to the American Foreign Legion!
High rise Paris La Defense
Description
High rise Paris La Defense
Practical informations
- Location: Métro Argentine (line 1)
- Duration : 2h
- walk and metro
- Private group tour at any date (270€/group)
- Small group (up to 8 people) 50-80€ pp
The city of lights was not only shaped by Haussmann. We will discover a rather high rise Paris La Defense, the business district of Paris.
Our guide, a graduate in architecture, will explain the policy and urban planning at the origin of the creation of the large pedestrian area of 31 acres, bounded by a circular boulevard. The area is now established on four cities located west of Paris.
From the esplanade of la Defense, the walk will firstly focus on architectural projects and their role in the current socio-economic situation as well as the environmental dimension, which presides over the extensive renovations and skyscrapers in project in both business and residential buildings. Indeed, if the district attracts daily nearly 200,000 workers, only 20,000 people live there.
The vast pedestrian esplanade, built over parking lots, roads and public transport is also composed of hanging gardens and fountains. Sixty works of art make of La Defense a wide open-air museum.
The promenade invites you to discover the most interesting ones and secret areas. On the way, we will also learn some original stories about the district, for example, where the coffin of Napoleon made a stop on his return from St. Helena.
Finally, we will see that the district seeks renewal and expansion with offices outside the ring roads or through the busiest shopping center of France (48 million visitors per year) with the largest turnover (one billion €) which is opposite the famous CNIT, the first building built in 1958, with revolutionary architecture at the time.
Immediately next door is La Grande Arche, another symbol of La Defense housing various ministries, in which we will end the tour to discover the panorama of the area and Paris. As a matter of fact, the Grande Arche is at the end of the triumphal and historical axis starting at the Louvre, through the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe.
Between temporary exhibitions in an art gallery and comforatable seating in a cafe, we will take the opportunity to discuss issues of expanding the area between current economic situation and rebalancing of Greater Paris for the North and South of the French Capital.
