Grande Arche

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La Grande Arche
La Grande Arche (in the background; 2007)
View from the observation deck (2001)
North facade
Look at Les nuages

The Grande Arche ( German  "large arch" ) is a modern structure in the form of a triumphal arch , the shape of which is reminiscent of the three-dimensional projection of a tesseract . It is located in the high-rise La Défense district in the city of Puteaux , west of Paris . This new triumphal arch is officially called La Grande Arche de la Fraternité , but is also often called L'Arche de La Défense or simply La Grande Arche in Paris . It forms the western perspective of the so-called Ax historique , the avenue that forms a straight line with the more famous Arc de Triomphe and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel , which is located between the Jardin des Tuileries and the Louvre .

However, the structure is not exactly aligned with the line of sight of the Ax historique , but rotated 6.5 degrees from the axis. This deviation had to be accepted, as the traffic tunnels ( RER , Métro and motorway) running there had to be taken into account in the statics of the building . The slightly inclined view gives the structure a spatially deeper effect from a distance than would be the case with a frontal view.

history

The Grande Arche was built between 1984 and 1989 on the initiative of then President François Mitterrand , who changed the cityscape of Paris in the 1980s with many monumental buildings. The Grande Arche was designed by Johan Otto von Spreckelsen and Paul Andreu . From 425 participants, von Spreckelsen won 1st prize in an international competition. The Grande Arche was opened on July 14, 1989 to mark the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution .

architecture

With a height of 110.9 meters, a width of 106.9 meters and a length of 112 meters , the building is almost cube-shaped , with the building edges of the outer and inner facade following the geometric shape of the cell-first projection of a four-dimensional hypercube , the so-called tesseracts . Before the renovation, the facade consisted of glass and Carrara marble , which was replaced by granite slabs during the renovation . The building construction consists of reinforced concrete (prestressed concrete), the concrete volume is 125,000 cubic meters. 35 storeys, which are mostly used as office and conference rooms, are distributed over the 19 meter wide side walls. A white, height-adjustable, cloud-like sail with the name les nuages (German: the clouds ) is intended to set a contrast to the monumental goal cube. The foundations are 30 m deep.

use

The building is used as the official seat of the French Ministry of Trade and Transport, for private sector offices and as the seat of the International Foundation for Human Rights (in the roof).

Until April 2014, after paying an entrance fee, tourists were able to take one of the glass elevators - also with a glass floor - to the roof area. From there, a viewing platform could be entered that allowed a view of La Défense and the Ax historique . In addition, there were regular exhibitions of all kinds on the top floor, and admission was included. After technical problems with the elevator, the operator ended this option and announced in the summer of 2010 that the rooms would be converted into offices and no longer accessible to the public.

From 2014 to 2018, the facade panels made of Carrara marble all had to be replaced because the thin marble panels were deformed by the weather (alternation between cold / heat and damp / dry) and proved unsuitable. They have been replaced by a special surface treatment with white granite slabs (type Bethel White ) from Vermont, which are matched in color and gloss to the original marble . The renovation cost around 200 million euros. The individual panels can also be exchanged after the renovation. In addition, the roof terrace was redesigned, the panoramic elevators were renewed and the offices were modernized.

After renovation work, the roof terrace was reopened on June 1, 2017.

See also

literature

  • Ernst Seidl: La Grande Arche de La Défense in Paris: Form - Power - Sense . Hamburg: Kovac 1998, ISBN 3-86064-702-4 .
  • Ernst Seidl: Monument in the service of democracy? La Grande Arche in Paris , in: H. Hipp, E. Seidl (Hrsg.): Architecture as political culture: philosophia practica. Reimer, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-496-01149-1 , pp. 311-326.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paris tourist attraction will be closed. Rhein-Zeitung ( dpa ), August 11, 2010, accessed on January 9, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Facade construction in the fourth dimension , gff praxismagazin, May 3, 2019
  3. ↑ Paris Cube in a New Dress , bpz - The Practice of Building Entrepreneurs, No. 3, 2019
  4. ^ Roman: Grande Arche in La Défense: the new roof terrace. Paris in a different way !, June 6, 2017, accessed on August 23, 2017 .

Web links

Commons : Grande Arche  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 53 ′ 34 "  N , 2 ° 14 ′ 8"  E