Publisher's Synopsis
The historical centre of Paris, the Ile de la Cité, is notably home to the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, Notre-Dame cathedral, Saint-Chapelle, the Palais de justice law court and the flower market. The core of Paris remains, however, largely unknown. In December 2015, Dominique Perrault, architect of the Bibliothèque nationale de France on the François-Mitterrand and the renovation of the Dufour Pavilion at the Château de Versailles, and Philippe Bélaval, president of the Centre des monuments nationaux, presented a reflection on rethinking the Ile de la Cité with a timeline of 2040. How can this Unesco World Heritage Site, abandoned by Parisians, be modernised and acquire a breath of life and mobility? With its rich collection of archival documents, engravings, maps and photographs, the book highlights the island's various renovation and redevelopment projects imagined throughout history, while questioning its current role. To integrate this exceptional site into the city of tomorrow, Dominique Perrault and Philippe Bélaval have imagined 35 proposals that give the island back a central place, notably thanks to the promotion of its exceptional heritage, a revamping of the circulation between its different centres of gravity and the development of its substrata and its foundations as well as its riverside paths. Text in English and French.
