THE GRAND PLACES LIE ALONG THE GRAND AXIS, WITH SYMBOLS THAT HIGHLIGHT ITS MESSAGE OF POWER
Places de la Republique and d'Italie are off to the side. Why does one have a giant statue, the other nothing?
Adapted from Mappy
Those openings came about naturally, as halts along the trade route. The future place de la Nation was a station on the route, Bastille an opening in the rampart gate and the Louvre a fortress on the path as it proceeded along the river.
République is a hook in the north, which lets troops assemble before entering working-class territory. Since nothing stands between it and the bracelet of places, it gets its monument.
That is not the case for place d'Italie. At the heart of a particularly miserable part of the city, a giant space for assembling troops was indispensable. But it could not be linked with the Grand Axis, on the other side of the river.
So it alone is empty.
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A recent transformation makes that emptiness grand:
- Before the changes, which began in 2017:
- A circle of cement is at the center, in 2019:
- The center becomes a pond that colored lights surround, in 2022.
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Eastern Paris's immense open spaces
demonstrate the reasons for the city's majesty:
The imprint of kings and dread of rebels.
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