Hotel Novanox, Boulevard du Montparnasse, Paris 2nd April 1993
The Le Grande Axe in Paris runs straight for over four and a half miles from the Arc du Carrousel via the Arc de Triomphe to La Defense Grande Arche. Too much for us and even the three and a quarter miles from the Arc de Triomphe seemed too far after an early start to the day – 4.45 am alarm and 7.05 am flight out of Stansted. So, we took the Metro to Pont Neuilly and walked the easier one and a quarter miles across the Seine and up the Esplanade de la Defense.
The Esplanade proceeds through a series of linked spaces, perhaps described as piazzas, squares or plazas according to taste and atmosphere. Sculpture tries to temper the austerity of the hard landscape: a slender shiny black pyramid; a giant column of rainbow tubes; primary coloured organic mushroom shapes; earth boring augers topped by lights standing in water; and a red steel structure recalling the bones of a long-wrecked ship. Incongruous amid the modernity, a bronze statue of a woman fighter in the uniform of the National Guard and fallen a soldier, made by Louis-Ernest Barrias in 1883, it commemorates the defence of Paris in 1870-71.
A little double decker roundabout plays merry piping music to the squealing of children. Men play boules and pigeons strut about foraging for crumbs. Smart executives stride purposefully between corporate destinations. Parties of young people on ‘educational’ visits try to be more interested in urban planning than they are in each other. Sight seers amble towards the Arche.
Powerful corporate buildings assert themselves on either side: Elf, glittering silver prisms; Fiat, severe black and foreboding; Bull, a sleek hard slice from a cylinder; Credit Lyonnaise, black with dazzling vertical silver ribs; the World Trade Centre, a low blister of a building like a hanger for the 21st Century. Grand statements, but saying what to whom?
The Arche is the grandest statement of all. President Mitterrand launched a competition to design it in 1982. Architect Johan Otto von Spreckelsen and engineer Erik Reitzel, both Danes, designed the winning entry to be a modern response to the Arc de Triomphe, a monument to humanity not military victories. Construction began in 1985 and was completed in 1989. The Arche is in the form of a cube with a width, height, and depth of 360 ft.
It has a strange presence. From a distance it appears to rise high into the sky and there is airy space beyond, but as you climb the Esplanade it seems to sink into the background. At the same time, from a distance it clearly looks big; but there is a point at which it suddenly seems to grow and become truly enormous, rising up from a cascade of white steps. Tiny figures appear at the parapet against the sky. It is awe inspiring.
A transparent space capsule carries us to the top. Below, the towers of La Defense are held at bay outside the Paris of Haussmann and a defiant distant Arc de Triomphe.