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Unbuilt Paris

That elephant monument you see in the 1832 section of "Les Miserables" from 2012 makes sense now.

There's a whole chapter devoted to it in the book, because it's one of Gavroche's dens, and he uses it to house his two brothers (he doesn't know they are related to him). Hugo spends a lot of time considering that even if it was the only thing the elephant did, sheltering two kids badly shaken by their reent abandonment, then it was maybe worth building.

I like Pei's Grande Arche much more than that ugly thing we have instead.

Unmentioned in the article is Napoléon's monumental idea for a new palace (because Louvre and Tuileries was clearly not enough), named after his son, which would have been Versailles, but in Paris.
 
Mum has read Alexandre Dumas's copious voluminous descriptions of Paris, and typically frustrated by the amount of detail given by the author on Paris.
 
Would the prospective Gare de la Place de la République have been a central station where tracks from the existing rail terminals would connect and allow trains to travel through the heart of Paris? I've been wondering whether similar ideas existed for other European capitals, and how practically they would be.
 
Would the prospective Gare de la Place de la République have been a central station where tracks from the existing rail terminals would connect and allow trains to travel through the heart of Paris? I've been wondering whether similar ideas existed for other European capitals, and how practically they would be.

My goodness, you'd have to put that on some kind of different levels.
 
What, no Plan Voisin?

My personal favorite unbuilt Paris is the one in the Jour J story "L'Imagination au pouvoir?" A civil war that erupts after the death of De Gaulle in 1968 destroys much of the city, which is then rebuilt according to the principles of psychedelic counterculture. Several of the buildings and architectural concepts (like the alternate Centre Beaubourg, the Cités cratères and the façade extensions) were taken from unrealized projects by Jean-Louis Chanéac.

Jour%2BJ%2B-%2BT06%2B-%2BPage%2B17.jpg
 
I disagree with the concept that he was proposing to demolish a 'historic' paris unless you consider Milton Keynes to be historic.

He was plonking it slap bang on top of the Marais- literally the only bit of Paris that was least affected by Haussmann.
 
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