La Grande Arche de La Défense

The sprawling satellite suburb of La Défense was built as a dedicated business district over 3 decades from the late '50s, just outside Paris, across the river from the 16th arrondissement. La Grande Arche, a massive steel-and-masonry arch rising 35 stories, was designed as its architectural centerpiece and was inaugurated in 1989. It was built with the blessing of the late François Mitterrand and extends the magnificently engineered straight line linking the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (a monument between the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens), the Champs-Élysées, the Arc de Triomphe, the Avenue de la Grande Armée, and the Place du Porte Maillot. The arch is ringed with a circular avenue patterned after the one around the Arc de Triomphe. The monument is tall enough to shelter Notre-Dame beneath its heavily trussed canopy.

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