6 Architectural Wonders In Paris To Visit On Your Travels
Reiterating a previous point we made here on The Fox Magazine, France is an exciting destination to visit.
As we outlined in ‘What’s New in France for 2019’ the year ahead promises to be even better. France remains very interesting to most travelers, largely due to the world-famous city of Paris. The City of Love has endless architectural wonders and they also have stairlifts for seniors.
So here are six of them, excluding the already world-famous Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum, and Palace of Versailles.
Les Invalides
Punctuated by a gleaming, gilded dome, Les Invalides is as much a Parisian landmark as the Eiffel Tower. It is a massive complex of museums, monuments, a hospital, a retirement home, and a church. Officially the Hôtel National des Invalides (The National Residence of the Invalids) is a beacon of Baroque architecture in the heart of Paris, with the Hardouin-Mansart’s chapel dome standing tallest and proudest.
Le Parc de Princes
Le Parc de Princes is a rare sporting venue that has actually become a cultural landmark, especially with its iconic razor façade architecture. Originally built in 1972 it has been the home to soccer club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) since 1974. The club features some of the beautiful game’s best players including Neymar Jr., Edinson Cavani, and France’s own, Kylian Mbappé. With such a stellar line-up, it’s no wonder why this particular stadium attracts soccer fans from all over the world.
PSG is the most famous club in France, so it’s no surprise that the Ligue 1 section on bwin Sports has the club as clear favorites to win the league this year. For a stadium of Le Parc’s status, it’s only fitting that it is the home to a club that is competing with the best clubs in the world.
Fondation Louis Vuitton
A relatively new addition to Paris’s skyline is Frank Gehry’s Fondation Louis Vuitton. Like the Louvre Museum, Fondation Louis Vuitton is an art museum, and a stunning one at that. Gehry’s masterpiece is decidedly modern, taking the shape of a futuristic ship with overlapping glass sails.
Notre Dame Cathedral
The Notre Dame Cathedral is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the 4th arrondissement of Paris. It is a stunning example of French Gothic architecture and is easily identifiable via two distinct towers on the west façade and the mighty Spire of the Cathedral, the Flèche. The Spire is surrounded by copper statues of the 12 apostles, each facing the towering cone except for St. Thomas.
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier in the 9th arrondissement of Paris is arguably the center of Parisian theater. It is also an architectural touchstone with its grandiose façade highlighted by eight pairs of classical columns and seven Roman arches. It is crowned by a huge, majestic dome, which is quite fitting for a building commissioned as the ultimate embellishment for Haussmann’s boulevards.
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou, formally the Centre Georges Pompidou, is in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. It houses the Bibliothèque publique d’information (Public Information Library), the Musée National d’Art Moderne, and IRCAM (a center for music and acoustic research). It is a very popular Parisian landmark, one that Architectural Digest describes as looking like “straight out of Super Mario Land.” It was designed in the 1970s and shows the high-tech architecture style that emerged during that period.
