, originally uploaded by simple pleasure
Paris is different. London is a union of disparate villages with blurred boundaries. Paris is divided into areas determined by bureaucrats, not by history or geography. And when you look at the map, the number of institutions astonishes. Paris seems to be dominated by hospitals. Look at the plan of the 13th arrondissement and you see whole city blocks given over to medicine. And next to hospitals on the Paris maps, cemeteries. French officials have tidy imaginations.
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Architecturally, Paris has a special consistency. Regulations limit height , so only the 210m Tour Montparnasse (conceived in a Gaullist euphoria of modernisme and eventually finished in 1973) stands out. Otherwise, the central city skyline is uniform. You have to look west to La Défense, beyond the city limits, to see skyscrapers. Through the Arc de Triomphe on the misty horizon are the faint profiles of Saubot and Jullien’s 1974 Tour Fiat and their 1985 Tour Elf, each 180m tall. Nearby is the landmark 1989 Arche de la Défense by Johann Otto von Spreckelsen; Notre-Dame would fit underneath its daunting, white marble, cubic arch.
Check out Boulevards of unbroken dreams for a great walking tour of Paris.