Originally there was a bare hilltop here, crowned by a statue commemorating the Defence of Paris in the war of 1870. The statue is still there, but around it has grown a town of the 21st century, where people live and work high in the air, work forty floors up in the building opposite, shop underground and take their ease at ground level. All the roads and public transport are underground, too. 

After long deliberation about what to put at the end of the Grande Perspective - a vast mirror was suggested at one time - LA GRANDE ARCHE has now been completed. This is not an arch at all, but a cube 100 metres long, wide and high, with a hole through the middle and glass lifts up its centre. In front of the cube is a wide open space with trees, a market, the great view back into Paris, and a fountain 60 metres long whose water, electronically controlled, dances to music on summer evenings. 

Also not to be missed at La Défense: the CNIT (Centre Nationale de l’Industrie et de la Technologie), one of the first buildings to go up, consisting of a triangular curved concrete slab touching the ground only at its corners. This is now the showcase of the French Computer industry. LES QUATRE TEMPS is the shopping centre, on three levels (two underground), a whole series of interconnecting malls with large squares each with its architectural feature. as it serves a suburb rather than the capital, it’s not an expensive place to shop. Look out, too, for the sculptures on the esplanade. The brightly-coloured one is by Miro, the biggest by Calder, who invented the Mobile. As this one doesn’t move, it’s called Stabile. There are about forty other sculptures around La Défense, and you can get a brochure about them from the Information Centre near the cube. A good way of spending an afternoon is to start at Pont de Neuilly, walk up the succession of terraces to the top, check out the architecture and sculpture, shop and eat in Quatre Temps, and go home on the métro. Of course, lazier people might like to do it the other way round.