THE VOIDS ALL HAVE A MONUMENT AT THE CENTER — WITH ONE EXCEPTION

SYMBOLS OF POWER COMMAND THE PLACES ALONG THE GRAND AXIS

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:

Zoom 

• 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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Next,

Notre-Dame Cathedral: 

Eternity, repression, erasure