Autorizzazione Tribunale di Roma n. 378 del 30/09/2005
 
Rivista bimestrale - Anno V - n.19 - Maggio-giugno 2009
ARCHITETTURA DEL 2000  







It’s almost the year 1870 in France and Eugéne Haussmann has no funds, the deputies are not supporting his building program anymore and Napoleon the Third is about to quit him. Haussmann has to hurry in order to complete his project for the Developing Plan of the city of Paris, although we already know he will not succeed. Given the charge of Seine prefect he finds a guerrilla tormented city; anyway he wants it to be the Ville Lumière, competing with the most advanced and industrialized European cities. This is not enough to the found raisers who want to regain the millions of francs they have lost and the prefect begins to feel uncomfortable under the weight of an impending failure. But he doesn’t give up and pushes the city limits west beyond the old customs barrier. Another difficulty was the accusation of having destroyed the wheat resources of Passy’s countryside: Haussmann’s work has come to an end just in the moment of rebirth of his Paris. But Haussmann’s farsightedness was subsequently justified: the 20th century Paris had to be built at West. Nowadays 100.000 people a day go working at La Défense, a neighbour that is known for its wonderful skyscrapers, pride of the modern architecture. This neighbour takes its name from the statue “La Défense de Paris” which was built in memory of the soldiers who died in the French-Prussian Wars, but the first building inaugurated in this area was the CNIT (Centre National des Industries et Techniques) after World War II, followed by several other constructions, the most of which are the centres of financial offices.

Now we can say that Haussmann was right! In fact only now that that the XXI broke up, his Paris is really complete. At La Défense the dominating materials are concrete, glass and steel in various forms: one of the architectonic masterpieces of the area is “La Grande Arche de la Fraternité”. Inaugurated in 1989 during the French Revolution’s bicentenary two years after the death of its Danish creator Johan Otto von Spreckelsen, La Grande Arche is the testimony of the triumph of the human rights, not a recall to the military beliefs held by the Arch of Triumph in Place de l’Etoile. Spreckelsen intended to build his work as “a symbol of the hope that one day men could meet freely”. A century before Gustave Eiffel celebrated the centenary of the Revolution with his famous tower; on the threshold of the year 2000 France was going to welcome a new and astonishing building, the first European skyscraper! The building process has been problematic: the idea of completing the neighbour with a communicative and impactful building was proposed already in 1958 but none of the projects (not even the one made by Ieoh Ming Pei, who was called some years later to build the Louvre Pyramid) fulfilled the requirements until 1982, when Spreckelen drew an exciting and simple building with a complex structure: its soul in tension hides under a classic disguise. This soul consists of twelve steel pillars sustaining 300.000 tons of reinforced concrete. The arch is covered with Carrara marble and grey granite and dominates the area thanks to its incredible greatness and the simplicity of its forms: an almost perfect cube dug in the center that represents with its 110 meters of height the highest building of La Défence and the pole of the city’s administrative life (there are government offices in the north and south side). La Grande Arche is the most known monument of the area due to the events that are organized inside the enormous tent which is placed between the two big columns. A thick tie-rod web makes this light and flexible structure stay suspended in the air thanks to the genius of Paul Andreu who brought the project to its realization after Spreckelsen’s death. At the base of the portal, on the platform at the peak of the stairs called “the crater” there are the entrances to the twin towers: the panoramic elevators. The patriotic value that was given to the Grand Arche is a symptom of the strength of French nationalism which wanted the modern Arch of Triumph, as to finally complete the old Development Plan, to be a continuation of the city’s historic axis which features the Louvre, Rue de Rivoli, Place de la Concorde, the Champs Elisées and Place de L’Etoile (now called Place Charles De Gaulle). After 120 years Haussmann’s dream has finally come true.


traslation: Daniele Mastropietro



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