Mission Grand AxeLa Défense is a strategic reserve that has so far kept Paris intact, a privileged expansion zone that enables the city – even the country – to modernize itself constantly, to make the tactical adjustments necessary to compete with other world capitals. It is a theatre of progress. Its presence has saved Paris; each eyesore realizedtherehas prevented an invasion of the centre. Now that the first sector is finished, the question of its expansion becomes acute. The existing is, in Europe, an ambiguous condition. Because Europe is the Old World, the continent of history, there is an unspoken assumption that all its substance – even the most mediocre – is historic, and therefore has a right to eternal life.Read moreLocationParis, FranceClientEPAD FranceYear1991StatusCompetitionProgramMasterplanTeamCollaborators