La Défense

La Défense is a major business district in France, located west of the city limits of Paris. It is part of the Paris metropolitan area in the Île-de-France region, located in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in the communes of Courbevoie, La Garenne-Colombes, Nanterre, and Puteaux.
La Défense is Europe's largest purpose-built business district, covering , for 180,000 daily workers, with 72 glass and steel buildings (of which 20 are completed skyscrapers, out of 24 in the Paris region), and of office space. Around its Grande Arche and esplanade ("le Parvis"), La Défense contains many of the Paris urban area's tallest high-rises. Les Quatre Temps, a large shopping mall in La Défense, has 220 stores, 48 restaurants and a 24-screen movie theatre.
The district is located at the westernmost extremity of the Axe historique ("historical axis") of Paris, which starts at the Louvre in Central Paris and continues along the Champs-Élysées, well beyond the Arc de Triomphe along the Avenue de la Grande Armée before culminating at La Défense. The district is centred in an orbital motorway straddling the Hauts-de-Seine department communes of Courbevoie, La Garenne-Colombes, Nanterre and Puteaux. La Défense is primarily a business district and hosts a population of 25,000 permanent residents and 45,000 students. La Défense is also visited by 8,000,000 tourists each year and houses an open-air museum.
History
La Défense is named after the statue La Défense de Paris by Louis-Ernest Barrias, which was erected in 1883 to commemorate the soldiers who had defended Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
In September 1958, the (EPAD) buildings (of which the Esso Tower was the very first) were constructed and began to slowly replace the city's factories, shanties, and even a few farms. The Centre of New Industries and Technologies (CNIT) was built and first used in 1958. These "first generation" skyscrapers were all very similar in appearance, limited to a height of . In 1966, the Nobel Tower was the first office skyscraper built in the area. In 1970, the RER line A railway was opened from La Défense to Étoile. In 1974, a contract for a Défense-Cergy high-speed hovercraft train was signed and soon abandoned.
In the early 1970s, in response to great demand, a second generation of buildings began to appear, but the economic crisis in 1973 nearly halted all construction in the area. A third generation of towers began to appear in the early 1980s. The biggest shopping centre in Europe (at the time), the Quatre Temps, was created in 1981. In 1982, the EPAD launched the Tête Défense competition to find a monument to complete the Axe historique, which eventually led to the construction of Grande Arche at the west end of the quarter. During the same period, hotels were constructed, the CNIT was restructured, and in 1992, Line 1 of the Paris Métro was extended to La Défense, which made the area readily accessible to more of the city.
On Bastille Day 1990, French electronic composer Jean-Michel Jarre staged an ambitious concert at the site, using the Grande Arche and three of the area's towers as projection screens, and building a pyramidal stage above the road. The free concert, titled Paris la Défense, attracted two million spectators, stretching all the way back to the Arc de Triomphe. This beat Jarre's own previous world record for the largest attendance for a musical concert.
After Jean Michel Jarre, German DJ Sash! and the singer La Trec set the video clip for their song Stay at La Défense in 1997.
After a stagnation in new development in the mid-1990s, La Défense is once again expanding and is now the largest purpose-built business district in Europe.
Major corporations headquartered at La Défense include Neuf Cegetel, Société Générale, TotalEnergies, Aventis, Areva, and Arcelor. The tallest skyscraper, the Tour First belongs to AXA, constructed in 1974. It is high, has 50 floors, and is the highest inhabited building in the Paris area. This title was previously held by the Tour Montparnasse, which was the tallest inhabited building until the Tour First was renovated between 2007 and 2011, bringing it to its current height from a previous ; the tallest structure in Paris is the Eiffel Tower.
On 9 September 2008, La Défense celebrated its 50th anniversary with a huge fireworks display.
In December 2005, Bernard Bled, CEO and chairman of EPAD (La Defense Management and Development Office) announced an ambitious nine-year development plan called "La Defense 2006–2015". This important modernisation plan has to give a new dimension to the district and focuses on four main axes: regenerate outdated skyscrapers, allow new buildings, improve the balance between offices and residential housing, and make the transport of local employees from their homes to La Défense easier. There are three aims: building of offices within demolition/rebuilding projects, building of offices within new projects, and building of housing.
In July 2006, the government confirmed this plan, which has to be carried out around 2015. It is justified by the strong estate pressure, which plays in favour of building new skyscrapers near Paris. Those constructions have the advantage of being more economical than small buildings. But it will have to overcome some difficulties: the French economy faces a short-term slowdown; the government is trying to balance tertiary sector employment in the whole region again, because today La Défense concentrates a major part of those jobs; and traffic is already saturated in the district, while it would need huge investments to extend transport infrastructures.
It launched high-profile international competitions and/or construction approval of several key tall sustainable development-style skyscrapers such as Tour Signal, Tour Phare, Hermitage Plaza, and Tour Generali. During said December 2005 Press Conference, EPAD released to the public an elaborate 3D animation film titled La Défense 2016.
Education
Paris La Défense brings together the cluster of Leonardo da Vinci University Center and 5 business schools: EDC Paris Business School, ESSEC Business School, ICN Graduate Business School, IESEG School of Management and SKEMA Business School. It is also home to the European School of Paris-La Défense, an international primary and secondary school that was accredited as a European School in 2020.
Area specifications
Divided into 4 major sectors
of offices
1,500 businesses
180,000 employees
20,000 residents
of shops (including the Quatre Temps Shopping Mall)
2,600 hotel rooms
of flagstone and sidewalk
of greenery
60 modern art sculptures and monuments
Open-air museum
Besides the representative architecture, the area also houses an open-air museum with 70 statues and pieces of modern art, including the following works:
César, Thumb (1965)
Joan Miró, Two fantastic characters (1976)
Alexander Calder, Red Spider (1976)
Yaacov Agam, Fountain (1977)
Richard Serra, Slat (1982)
Shelomo Selinger, The Dance (1983)
Bernar Venet, Two Indeterminate Lines (1988)
Takis, Bright Trees (1990)
Igor Mitoraj, Tindaro (1997)
Emily Young, Four Heads (2002)
Patrick Blanc, Green wall (2006)
Louis-Ernest Barrias, La Défense de Paris (1883)
François Morellet, La Défonce (1990)
Guillaume Bottazzi, Peinture de 216 m² (2014)
Highrise buildings
Completed highrise buildings above 50 m (164 ft) (1967–2023)
Upcoming highrise buildings (2023–2027)
Canceled projects
Tour Sans Fins (1989):
Hermitage Plaza (2022):
Tour Generali (2011):
Tour Signal (2009):
Tour Phare (2018):
See also
List of tallest buildings and structures in the Paris region
References
Further reading
Schaugg, Johannes: High-Rise Buildings – La Défense, Books on Demand 2009, .
External links
Satellite image from Google Maps
La Défense de Paris
Site officiel de l'EPAD (Établissement Public pour l'Aménagement de la Défense)
Connecting-Paris, web site created by the Chamber of commerce and industry of Paris to help companies setting up in La Defense
Expatriates Magazine, A printed publication distributed within various corporations situated in La Defense helping international employees integrate within the workplace and city
Les bâtiments de la Défense
Structurae: Structural engineering and architecture guide to Paris-La Défense
Financial districts in France
Central business districts in France
Economy of Paris
Tourist attractions in Hauts-de-Seine