PARIS BESt OF

PARIS

Paris has been my home for the past 16 years. My first job here, in 1989, was working for Karl Lagerfeld in the Chanel design studio. Next came W magazine, and then Harper’s Bazaar. Consequently, I’m al-ways being called upon for advice—where to go, where to eat, what to do. Delighted as I am to help, such questions are a lot to take on, because Paris is a different place for every-one. For some, Paris is about throwing all caloric caution to the wind. For others, Paris is where you can dress up in Lan-vin or Balenciaga, layer on the chicest accessories, and don the highest of Christian Loubou-tin heels. For still others, Paris is about sightseeing and check-ing out the latest exhibitions.

One key to understanding the capital is knowing that its deni-zens take their politics as seri-ously as they do the quality of their daily tartine (buttered ba-guette) and tasse de café. The 2007 presidential elections, for example, have already been seized on by le tout Paris. The big buzz is the rivalry between Dominique de Villepin, the dev-

astatingly good-looking con-servative prime minister, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the diminutive but charismatic interior minister. The potential candidates are wildly different, both more than 20 years younger than the cur-rent president, Jacques Chirac, and are the subject of passion-ate arguments. They’re just part of the general excitement and optimism of Paris these days.

Suddenly, the City of Light is smoldering again. After years of being mocked for being too traditional and taking its civic pride too seriously, Paris—with its unique mix of the old and the new—is proving to be the perfect antidote to globaliza-tion. Where else could you find popular boutiques specializ-ing in ribbons, walking canes, dollhouse furniture, and taxi-dermy? On the other hand, any of Paris’s 20 arrondissements (really a cluster of little villages) can dramatically metamorpho-se from one year to the next. For instance, when the Canal St.-Martin area became the new place to live, the 10th was transformed. When renowned art galleries such as Emmanuel

Perrotin moved to Rue Louise-Weiss, the 13th Arrondisse-ment became le “it” neighbor-hood. The once sleepy First Arrondissement, where my husband and I moved back in 1997, was turned into a des-tination when the trendset-ting store Colette opened on Rue St.-Honoré. Sometimes, I pine for our old diner with its cracked-leather banquettes, for a time when I could slip out to buy fresh croissants in the mornings with just my coat on over my PJ’s.

However, adapting is essen-tial to life in Paris. As is be-

ing in the know. So, I’ve dug deep into my little black book and badgered all my stylish Parisian friends for this ex-haustive guide to a town of a thousand faces. Just remem-ber: Come with an open heart, don’t forget to say “Bonjour” when you enter a shop or to hold the door when exiting the Métro. That, and the follow-ing recommendations, should put you on the right track.

Eiffel Tower

The world is filled with build-ings and monuments named after monarchs, generals and businessmen, but it’s rare to find great landmarks that credit the architects or engineers who actually built them. The giant tower that greeted visi-tors to the Paris Universal Ex-position of 1889 was planned to be merely a temporary con-struction. Perhaps that’s why it was excused from bearing the name of some national symbol or lofty ideal, and instead com-memorates the genius of Gus-tave Eiffel.

Page 2

‘Gustave Eiffel knew how to master the most advanced technology of the time,’ says Stéphane Dieu, who looks af-ter the tower’s heritage. ‘For a start, the foundations of the tower’s four pillars had to be built in damp soil close to the river. Above all, it was his faith and love of science that guid-ed him – you can see that from the frieze around the first floor, which gives the names of 72 French scientists.’

The commercial success of a 300-metre observation tower was only possible of course thanks to the invention of the elevator. Four sets of diagonal lifts climb the tower’s splayed feet to the mid-levels, through a lattice of girders that join in crosses and starbursts. The second journey is a vertical one, up the centre of the struc-ture. As the cabin glides ever higher, the four edges of the tower close in around it. Just before it seems like the iron is about to run out, the lift stops, and opens its doors.

Eiffel’s supreme achievement was meant to be dismantled by 1909. It was only saved on his insistence that it could serve as a testing ground for scien-tific experiments and later as a radio transmitter. Bridges and buildings by Eiffel survive from Hungary to Bolivia. He even de-signed the internal framework for the Statue of Liberty. But if it hadn’t been for Eiffel’s determi-nation, the tower that bears his name might be remembered today only from a few yellowing postcards.

Top tip: if you know your travel dates two or three months in advance, it’s worth booking a

timed ticket to skip long ticket office queues (tour-eiffel.fr). You’ll need to print it out or show it on a smartphone screen.

Notre-Dame

The queue to get inside Notre-Dame passes by a bronze marker in the cobblestones, denoting ‘point zéro’ – the spot from which all French road dis-tances are measured. As an of-ficial centre point, this makes a certain amount of sense. Notre-Dame is on an island, washed by the strong current of the Seine, that was one of earli-

est parts of Paris to be settled in Roman times – convenient-ly neutral ground in the city’s Left Bank-Right Bank divide.

A lot of what appears medi-eval is really neo-medieval. The French Revolution took an anti-clerical turn, and the ca-thedral suffered for it. Most of its bells were melted down and in 1793 the 28 royal statues on the main façade were van-dalised, their heads hacked off – the crowd had allegedly mistaken these Biblical rulers for kings of France. By 1831, when Victor Hugo wrote The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, the cathedral had become a dilapidated embarrassment.

The architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was brought in to bring Notre-Dame back to glory in the 1840s. As with many of

his restoration projects how-ever, he took some creative liberties along the way. These include Notre-Dame’s famous grotesques, or chimeras – not properly gargoyles, as they serve as decoration rather than waterspouts. A dimpled, well-trodden spiral staircase leads to the Galerie des Chimères. A herd of grotesques perch on this balcony walkway between the west towers – sinewy, bearded devils, but also a pelican and even an elephant. They weren’t on the original blueprints, but then again Notre-Dame never got the spires that were meant to top its twin square towers. Perhaps a great cathedral is always a work in progress.

Top tip: on the façade’s left-hand portal, look out for the statue of St Denis. The pa-tron saint of France is said to have walked a few miles af-ter being decapitated, car-rying his head in his arms.

Louvre

The largest painting on dis-play at the Louvre is The Wed-ding Feast at Cana, painted by Paolo Veronese in 1563. It covers a whole wall of the Sal-le des États, and in any other room it would be the focus of attention. On the wall imme-diately facing it however is a modest-sized portrait in smoky colours of a woman smiling enigmatically. Thanks to the Mona Lisa, known in France as La Joconde, the figures in Veronese’s masterpiece spend most of their time looking out onto a throng of people with their backs turned. The world’s most visited museum has plen-ty of similar treasures hiding in plain sight, beginning with the

Page 3

earliest work on display – a 9000-year old human figure in ghostly white plaster from Ain Ghazal in Jordan. Tutankha-mun of Egypt lived closer in time to us than to the people who made this statue – a whis-per from a nameless past.

‘We almost don’t want to say which rooms are less visited than they should be – we would like to keep them quiet!’ says Daniel Soulié, who has written several books on the Louvre. ‘The whole Richelieu wing and the second floor, the galleries of French sculpture and objets d’art, the paintings of the North-ern European schools – these are fabulous collections which don’t get so many visitors.’

Top tip: the museum offers a variety of themed, self-guided trails, including palace history, horse-riding, The Da Vinci Code

and artworks depicting love through the ages (louvre.fr).

Catacombs

The Paris catacombs were a quick solution to a mounting problem. By the late 18th cen-

tury, the medieval cemeter-ies could not keep up with the growth of the city. Old graves were dug up and bones tossed into attic-like charnel houses to make room for more burials.

Paris already possessed a network of tunnels, built from Roman times onwards to quarry high-quality limestone for buildings such as Notre-Dame. From 1786, the old city-centre cemeteries were gradually emptied, and their contents brought to the mine-shafts in a nightly stream of hearses accompanied by the chanting of priests. The last of the transfers to the catacombs was made in 1860, by which time vast suburban cemeter-ies such as Père Lachaise had relieved the burden on the city.

The catacombs begin with a doorway over which is writ-

ten: ‘Arrête! C’est içi l’empire de la mort’ (‘Stop! Here is the empire of death’). This is the first of many cheery inscrip-tions that were designed, in the words of the quarries’ over-seer Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury, to ‘break the sinis-

ter and dark monotony’ of the catacombs, and to put the liv-ing into a philosophical frame of mind. The embankments of bones on either side of the passageways have signs stat-ing the original cemeteries and dates of reburial. Even here the human urge to be decora-tive expresses itself in patterns of skulls and femurs. The first bones had been thrown in hap-hazardly, in a rationalist 18th century that just wanted these unsavoury remains put some-where safely out of sight. But when burials resumed after a hiatus caused by the turmoil of the French Revolution, Ro-manticism had become the zeitgeist, and the catacombs were refashioned into a place where visitors could enjoy a kind of dignified melancholy.

Top tip: queues to get in can be long (sometimes over an hour), so try to arrive be-fore the catacombs open at 10am. Dress for a tempera-ture of around 14°C, with a few drips of water from the ceiling.

Napoleon’s Triumphal Arch

The arch was commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 to com-memorate his victories, but he was ousted before the arch was completed. In fact, it wasn’t completed until 1836 during the reign of Louis-Philippe. The Arc de Triomphe is engraved with names of generals who commanded French troops during Napoleon’s regime.

Design

The design of the arch by Jean Chalgrin is based on the Arch of Titus in Rome. The Arc

Page 4

de Triomphe is much higher (50m versus 15m), but it has exactly the same proportions.

The triumphal arch is adorned with many reliefs, most of them commemorating the emperor’s battles. Among them are the battle of Aboukir, Napoleon’s victory over the Turkish and the

Battle of Austerliz, where Na-poleon defeated the Austrians.

The best known relief is the Departure of the Volunteers in 1792, also known as the Mar-seillaise. At the top of the arch are thirty shields, each of them bears the name of one of Na-poleon’s successful battles.Below the arch is the Grave of the Unknown Soldiers, honoring the many who died during the First World War.

Place Charles de Gaulle

The arch is located at the end of the Champs-Elysées, in the middle of the Place Charles de Gaulle, a large circular square from which no less than 12 streets ema-nate. The streets are named after French military leaders.

Observation deck

The top of the arch features a viewing platform from where you have great views of La De-fense, the Champs-Elysées and the Sacré-Coeur. Make sure you take one of the underpasses to the arch, it is too dangerous to try and cross the street. There is no elevator in the arch, so be prepared to walk up 234 steps.

Sacré-Coeur

The Sacré-Coeur Basilica is one of Paris’s major tourist draws. The majestic building is locat-ed on top of the Montmartre hill.

Montmartre

Above all, Montmartre, an area on a hill in the 18th arrondisse-ment, north of downtown Paris, is known for its many artists who have been omnipresent since 1880. The name Montmartre is said to be derived from either Mount of Martyrs or from Mount of Mars. Until 1873, when the

Sacré-Coeur was built on top of the hill, Montmartre was a small village, inhabited by a mostly farming community.

The Basilica Project

The project to build the Sacré-Coeur Basilica (Basilica of the Sacred Heart) was initiated by a group of influential people. Their reasons to build this monument was two-fold: Statue King Louis IX on the Sacre Coeur in ParisKing Louis IXthey had pledged to build a church if Paris escaped un-scathed from the war with the Prussians and they saw the defeat of the French at the hands of the Prussian army in 1870 as a moral condem-nation of the sins of Paris.The project was authorized by the National Assembly in 1873, and a competition was organized. The goal was to build an imposing basilica true to Christian traditions.

The Building

The winner of the competition was Paul Abadie, who had al-ready restored two cathedrals in France. He designed an immense basilica in a Roman-Byzantyne style. This architec-tural style stands in sharp con-trast with other contemporary buildings in France, The Sacré-Coeur seen from the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, ParisView from theParc des Buttes-Chaumontwhich were mostly built in a Romanesque style.

Construction of the Basilica started in 1876 with Abadie as the lead architect. When Paul Abadie died in 1884, he was succeeded by Lucien Magne,

Page 5

who added an 83 meter (272 ft) tall clock tower. The Sa-voyarde clock installed here is one of the world’s largest.

Due to its location on the Mont-martre hill, the basilica towers over the city; its highest point is even higher than the top of the Eiffel Tower. Thanks to this prominent location the Sacré-Coeur Basilica is one of the most Sacré-Coeur, Parisno-ticeable landmarks in Paris.

White Stones

The Sacré-Coeur Basilica has managed to keep its beam-ing white color even in the polluted air of a big city like Paris. This can be attributed to the Château-Landon stones which were used for the con-struction of the Sacré-Coeur. When it rains, the stones react to the water and secrete cal-cite, which acts like a bleacher.

Louvre Pyramid

The Louvre Pyramid was built in the 1980s as the main en-trance to the Louvre Museum. The modern glass structure, which forms a nice contrast with the historic facades of the Louvre, has become a

landmark in its own right.

Louvre Museum Ex-pansion

The Louvre Pyramid was built as part of a project known as the ‘Grand Louvre’, first pro-posed in 1981 by the French president François Mitter-rand, to expand and mod-ernize the Louvre Museum.

In the 1970s the centuries-old Louvre Palace struggled to cope with the rising number of visitors. The entrances were too small, each wing had a different entrance and the layout was so confusing that visitors struggled to find the entrance or the exit.

Mitterrand suggested to ex-pand the museum by relocat-ing the Ministry of Finance - which had occupied the Richelieu wing of the Lou-vre since 1873 - to the Bercy neighborhood. Finally the Lou-vre Museum could occupy the whole U-shaped building.

Subterranean entrance

Miterrand rejected the idea of a competition for the Grand Lou-vre project, and appointed the Chinese-born American archi-

tect Ieoh Ming Pei to modernize the Louvre and integrate the dif-ferent wings. Pei suggested ex-cavating the Cour Napoléon - a central courtyard - and create a subterranean entrance hall - the Hall Napoléon - with ac-cess to the three different wings and space for shops, restau-rants and other amenities. This would solve the accessibility problem of the Louvre Museum.

The Pyramid

Geometric Shape

Fountain at the Lou-vre Pyramid in ParisPyramid FountainFor the entrance to the sub-terranean level, Pei wanted to avoid it looking like a mere subway station and he need-ed the right kind of building to draw visitors to the museum’s entrance. A solid concrete structure - like his East Build-ing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC - was out of the question, since this would clash with the classical facades of the Louvre palace.

After studying the works of André Le Nôtre - France’s great landscape designer - who strictly followed geo-metric patterns, Pei came up with the shape of a pyramid, which would form a beacon at the center of the courtyard. He opted for a glass cladding since this would be the least in-trusive and it would also allow light to enter the foyer below.

A Hostile Reception

As soon as word leaked that a modern pyramid would be built at the heart of the Louvre, most critics were quick to attack the

Page 6

audacious design. The plans also caused an outcry with Parisians, who had become weary of modern projects af-ter the construction of the Montparnasse Tower and the bland towers of La Défense. Polls indicated a large major-ity of the French citizens op-posed the structure. But soon after the official inauguration of the pyramid in March 1989, the opposition quickly sub-sided and the Louvre Pyramid became one of Paris’s most beloved modern landmarks.

The Design

The pyramid is rather modest in size compared to the sur-rounding palace wings of the Louvre. It has a height of about 22 meters (72ft) and at its base measures just over 35 meters (116ft). It is flanked by three smaller pyramids and reflecting pools with modern fountains.

Much effort was made to make the pyramid as transparent as possible. The 675 diamond-shaped and 118 triangular panes were specifically fab-ricated to make them com-pletely clear. Attention was also paid to the 128 steel girders and 16 steel cables that hold the panes together. Technol-ogy from high tech yachts was used to make them as small and unobtrusive as possible.

The Inverted Pyramid

In 1993 the underground area expanded with the opening of a modern shopping mall, the Carrousel du Louvre. It is an-chored by an inverted glass pyramid, known as the Pyra-mide Inversée (Inverted Pyra-mid), which nicely comple-ments the Louvre Pyramid.

The pyramid was designed by the American architec-ture firm of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, who created a smaller version of Pei’s pyra-mid, turned it upside down right and suspended it right above a small stone pyramid.

Musée d’Orsay

The Musée d’Orsay is a museum housed in a grand railway sta-tion built in 1900. Home to many sculptures and impressionist paintings, it has become one of Paris’s most popular museums.

New Railway Stations

At the turn of the 19th century, two large railway stations were built in Paris, the Gare de Lyon and the Gare d’Orsay. The Gare d’Orsay had the most prominent site, along the Seine opposite the Louvre. The rail-way station was planned by the Compagnie d’Orléans, who wanted to bring electrified trains right into the heart of Paris.

Design

The architect first appointed was Eugène Hénard. He in-tended to use industrial mate-rial on the facade facing the Louvre. Facing fierce protests from preservationists, theCompagnie d’Orléans decid-ed to hold a competition su-pervised by a parliamentary commission. The winner of this contest was Victor Laloux, who had also designed the rail-way station in Tours, France.

His design was acclaimed for the integration of the metal vault in the stone exterior. The hall measures 140 meter long, 40 meter wide and 32 meter high (459 x 132 x 105 ft). The whole structure is 175 meter long and 75 meter wide (574 x 246 ft). An impressive 12 000 ton metal was used for the construction of the gare d’Orsay, which is well more than the amount of metal used for the Eiffel Tower.

The Railway Station...

The Gare d’Orsay was inaugu-rated on the 14th of July 1900 for the Paris World Exposition and was considered a masterpiece of industrial architecture. But soon the platforms had become too short for the now much lon-ger trains and as early as 1939, the gare d’Orsay was out of use as a train station. Over time it was used as a parking lot, as a shooting stand, as a theatre location and even as a recep-tion center for prisoners of war.

...Turned into a Museum

The train station had been completely abandoned since 1961 when it was saved from demolition by the French president Pompidou. In

Page 7

1978 his successor, presi-dent Giscard d’Estaing, de-cided to use the Gare Inside the Orsay Museum, ParisInside the museumd’Orsay as a museum for 19th and 20th century art.It would not only contain paint-

ings, but it would also cover different art forms, including sculptures, engravings, photos, film, architecture and urbanism.

Restoration of the Musée d’Orsay, as it is now called, started in 1979 and finally on the 29th of November 1986, the museum was inaugu-rated by the French presi-dent, François Mitterrand.

Collection

When it opened the museum contained some 2300 paint-ings, 1500 sculptures and 1000 other objects. Most of these works of art came from other museums such as the Musée du Luxembourg. Over time the collection has ex-panded significantly mainly due to acquisitions and gifts. It covers a period from the mid 19th century up to 1914 and contains works from Degas, Rodin, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Cezanne, van Gogh and others

Centre Pompidou.

In 1969 French President Georges Pompidou launched the idea of creating a new cultural institution in Paris dedicated to modern art.

Functional Design

In 1971 a competition for this new cultural center attracted 650 entries. The winning proj-ect, submitted by the archi-tects Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano and Gianfranco Franchi-ni broke with architectural con-ventions by moving functional elements such as escalators, water pipes and air condition-ing to the outside of the build-ing, freeing interior space for the display of art works. The pipes and ducts are all color-coded: blue for air, green for water, red for elevators, yellow for electricity, gray for corridors and white for the building itself.

Opposition

The construction of the glass and metal building in the centrally located Beaubourg neighborhood ran into a lot of opposition from people who disliked the idea of an ‘oil re-finery’ in a historic district. But when the museum opened in December 1977, it became an instant success: originally de-signed to accommodate some

Pipes of the Centre PompidouThe ‘oil refinery’5,000 visitors per day, the Cen-tre Pompidou has been wel-coming over 25,000 visitors per day making it one of the most visited attractions in Paris.

More Than a Museum

The Centre Pompidou is home to one of the world’s most im-portant museums of mod-ern art, the MNAM, but it also contains a very popular li-brary, a bookshop, a movie theater and a panoramic ter-race. The Public Informa-tion Library or BPI boasts a collection of 450,000 books, 2,600 magazines and a large number of new media items.

The library occupies the first three floors of the building, while the museum’s perma-nent collection is located on floors 4 and 5. The first and top floor are used for large exposi-tions. The museum has one of the most important collections of modern art. Its more than 59,000 works cover a broad spectrum of 20th century arts.

The 4th floor contains works from 1905 to 1965 and covers art movements such as fau-vism, abstract art, surrealism and cubist art. Some of the fea-tured artists include Matisse, Kadinsky, Miró and Picasso.

Stravinsky Fountain near the Centre Pompidou in ParisStravinsky FountainThe 5th floor covers the period after 1965, including the pop-art movement and figurative art

Place Beaubourg

The square in front of the Page 8

Centre Pompidou, the ‘Place Georges Pompidou’ or ‘Place Beaubourg’, is very popu-lar. The large crowds are animated by mimes, street portraitists and entertainers.

If you want to see some mod-ern art without going into the museum, just go to the right of the square, to the place Igor Stravinsky where you’ll find the most famous modern fountain in Paris. The foun-tain has several kinetic sculp-tures, designed by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely.

La Défense

La Défense is the prime high-rise office district of Paris. Many of Paris’s tallest build-ings can be found here.

The Triumphal Way

At the end of the first World War, plans were made to de-velop the axis from the Arc de Triomphe at the Etoile to La Défense, an area at the edge of the center of Paris.

Numerous plans were submit-ted for the Voie Triumphale or Triumphal Way as it was known, most of them with end-less rows of impressive sky-scrapers in mostly Modernist style. Many of the plans which were submitted in 1930 came from renowned architects like Le Corbusier and Auguste Per-ret. None of these plans were realized, mainly due to the Great Depression in the 1930s

La Défense.

In 1931 though, the authorities organized a new competition, but the intent was to limit the

height of the buildings along the Triumphal Way. Only at the end of the long avenue, at the Défense, were towers al-lowed. This was recommended by the authorities as towers close to the center would ob-struct the view on the Etoile.

Most of the 35 (French) entries in the competition were either classical or modernist style, but again none of the plans were actually realized due to lack of funding. The main fo-cus now moved from the Tri-umphal way to the Défense area, or La Défense. The name défense originates from the monument ‘La DéfenseDéfense de Paris’, which was erected at this site in 1883 to commemorate the war of 1870.

A Forest of Towers

In 1951, the Défense site was chosen as an office center. In 1958, development of the area was started by a special agen-cy, the Etablissement Public d’Aménagement de la Défense.

The first plan had 2 rows of skyscrapers of equal height. In 1964, a plan was approved to have 20 office towers of 25 sto-ries each. Little of the develop-ment on the Défence was actu-ally built according to this plan, as most companies started to press for taller office towers.

The result is a mix of most-ly cheap towers of different heights. The tallest of them, the GAN tower, measured 179 meters (589 ft).Défense Palace The height of several towers, and in particular the GAN tow-er caused a public outcry as the ‘forest of towers’ disturbs the view on the Arc de Triom-phe as seen from the Etoile.

Partly in response to this criti-cism a new monument was built at the entrance of the Défense as a counterweight for the Arc de Triomphe: The Tête Défense , also known as the Grande Arche de la Défense.

Grande Arche de la Défense

The project to build the ‘Grande Arche’ (Great Arch) was sup-ported by the French presi-dent Mitterrand who wanted a 20th century version of the Arc de Triomphe. The design of Danish architect Otto von Spreckelsen looks more like a cube-shaped building than a triumphal arch. The 106 me-ters (348 ft) wide building has a central archway. The sides of the cube contain offices while the rooftop has a belvedere that until 2010 was open to visitors.

Opéra de Paris Garnier

The opulent Opéra de Paris Gar-nier was designed by Charles Garnier for Emperor Napoleon

Page 9

III. It is the most important sym-bol of the nineteenth century Second Empire Baroque style.

Construction

Construction of the opera build-ing started in 1862, but it wasn’t completed until 1875, partly because an underground lake was discovered during con-struction. The small lake still exists under the opera build-ing. It was the hiding place of the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ in Paul Leroux’s famous play.

Palais Garnier

Since the construction of the modern Opéra de Paris Bas-tille in 1989 on the Place de la Bastille, the majestic Opéra Garnier is now mainly used for ballet performances. At the same time, it was also of-ficially renamed ‘Palais Opéra’.

The Building

Even though the building has a seating capacity of less than 2,200, the building is one of the largest theatres in the world by acreage. It is 172 meter long, 125 meter wide and reaches a height of 73,6 meter (564 x 410 x 241 ft). The facade is deco-rated with rose marble col-umns, friezes, sculpture groups and two large gilded statues.

Interior

The interior of the Opéra Garni-er building is even more impres-sive than its exterior. The marble Grand Staircase has a height of 30m/98ft! The 54m long Grand Foyer features a mosaic cov-ered ceiling and a large num-ber of chandeliers. It is so luxu-

rious that it can be compared with the corridors in Versailles.

Behind the Grand Foyer and below the green cop-per dome is the lavishlydecorated auditorium with red velvet, plaster cherubs and gold leaf. The auditorium’s magnificent chandelier weighs a massive six tonnes. Its oval-shaped ceiling was painted in 1964 by Marc Chagall. The stage behind the auditorium is 60 meter high (197 ft) and has room for up to 450 actors.

Location

The Opera de Paris Garni-er is located at the Place de l’Opera, a square in the 9th arrondissement, just north of the 2nd arrondissement.

Passages & Galeries

Paris’s historic covered arcades - locally known as passages or galeries - were the precursors of today’s shopping malls. Of the more than one hundred passages that were built dur-ing the nineteenth century, about twenty have survived.Most of the surviving cov-ered arcades are located in the very center of Paris, in or near the 2nd arrondissement.

History

At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nine-teenth century numerous cov-ered passages were created in Paris. The passages, mostly shopping arcades covered with glass roofs, were modern symbols of urban life and the place to shop in Paris. Many of these passages were beau-

tifully decorated with mosaic floors, cast iron gates, mar-ble pillars and ornate clocks.

At its peak during the mid-nineteenth century, there was a network of more than 140 passages, many connected to each other. The pedestrianized passages, home to shops, res-taurants and apartments, were very popular as they protected visitors from inclement weather and the often dirty and odorous streets. Their popularity soon started to decline due to com-petition from large department stores Galerie Colbert, Parissuch as Galeries Lafayette and Printemps, and many were abandoned and started to fall in disrepair. Others were de-molished during the redevelop-ment of Paris by baron Hauss-mann between 1852 and 1870.

At the end of the twentieth century, especially during the 1980s, the glass covered pas-sages started a revival, and many of the about twenty sur-viving shopping arcades were restored, such as the passage Jouffroy with its barrel vault sky-light and the elegant Galerie Vivienne with its mosaic floors.

The passages today

Today the passages are home to numerous upscale, quirky and specialty shops.

Page 10