Since the previous post suggested it, SSC's French mod Indy G maintains a lovely thread of the historic central biz district, making an essential point by showing the refurbishments it's undergoing.
Indeed, no need to say it's extremely important for the overall metro area and even the entire country that the traditional CBD remains aggressive and competitive enough both on the local and the global stages. So these are some nice pics by Indy to show off a bit of the ongoing renovations.
Refurbishment of place Vendôme, a famous square from the 17th century that features some luxury brand shops.
Great to see it finally getting cleaned up. That one is precious and prestigious for some of the oldest and most original stuff over the area. Entire Europe ripped off that kind of things that came from Italy and was widely enhanced to a large scale in France.
This is facing the Opéra Garnier. You can see some buildings at the end of the major Haussmannian avenue coming to it being cleaned up too.
More modern simple things like this just look fine to me as well, bringing some additional diversity to various styles and eras.
Something older, still renovated lately.
That building belongs to a large French bank. Interiors freshly refurbished, a mix of modern and historic. I dig those details well captured by Indy G. Lol I hope he won't mind if I steal all his pics to show you guys.
This would be on rue de la Paix, the rather short street stretching between place Vendôme and the Opéra.
Just your regular stuff over there. Lots of ceilings like these.
A last one recently renovated on boulevard des Capucines.
We owe many thanks to Indy G for his pictures. Looks like the lucky dude works over there and can use a camera.
So no highrises yet in there, but it really doesn't have to fear any skyscraper anyway, still seriously delivering in its hitoric style all over the stunning fabric that goes on and on along the streets and boulevards. Anyone who came over here knows how that feels.
A bunch of the most decorated in there are from the very late 19th or very early 20th centuries, designed in styles such as Art Nouveau/Belle Époque, that came a bit later than the very Haussmannian fabric that was built in the 1850s and 60s. So I find some local forumers saying that the generic Haussmannian buildings would look mediocre compared to the heavier and slightly later ornaments a bit pointless in that note of theirs, for in between something called the 2nd Indsutrial Revolution took place and obviously dramatically changed methods of production, making it all more efficient. Besides, all buildings in there, whether from the 17th of from the 21st century take part of the overall feel of the district. It's much more a matter of a large high quality urban fabric than just a few peculiar achievements that would stand out. And that actually feels even more powerful and crushing.