As an article in The Guardian (U.K.) notes, the beauty of Paris is due at least in part to rigid guidelines about the kinds of construction that can take place in the heart of the city. This is not a town where skyscrapers dominate the view; when they do, like near the Tour Montparnasse, they are often reviled.
But in the outer arrondissements there is more freedom to experiment, so The Guardian offers four examples of modern building that give some "edginess" to the city's landscape. Most of them are in the Bercy area. They are:
- The Headquarters of le Parti Communist Français, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, the prime architect of Brasilia.
- Cinémathèque Francaise, by Frank Gehry, who is also responsible for the Guggenheim in Bilboa and the Disney Concert Hall in LA.
- The Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir, a pedestrian bridge opened in 2006.
- Bibliothèque Nationale de France, one of François Mitterand's "grands projets." The four buildings, used mostly for storage, look like open books. Beautiful at night, they are sometimes criticized for their inhospitality (all of the reading rooms are underground). The official BNF site has a video tour.
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