La Grande Arche
| Grande Arche de la Défense | |
|---|---|
La Grande Arche de la Défense
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| General information | |
| Type | Office |
| Location | La Défense, Île-de-France, France |
| Coordinates | 48°53′34″N 2°14′09″E / 48.89278°N 2.23583°ECoordinates: 48°53′34″N 2°14′09″E / 48.89278°N 2.23583°E |
| Construction started | 1985 |
| Completed | 1989 |
| Height | 110 m (361 ft) |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Johann Otto von Spreckelsen |
La Grande Arche de la Défense (pronounced: [la ɡʁɑ̃d aʁʃ də la defɑ̃s]; also La Grande Arche de la Fraternité) is a monument and building in the business district of La Défense and in the commune of Puteaux, to the west of Paris, France. It is usually known as the Arche de la Défense or simply as La Grande Arche.
A great national design competition was launched in 1982 as the initiative of French president François Mitterrand. Danish architect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen (1929–1987) and Danish engineer Erik Reitzel designed the winning entry to be a late-20th-century version of the Arc de Triomphe: a monument to humanity and humanitarian ideals rather than military victories. The construction of the monument began in 1985. Spreckelsen resigned in July 1986 and ratified the transfer of all his architectural responsibilities to his associate, French architect Paul Andreu. Reitzel continued his work until the monument was completed in 1989.
The Arche is in the approximate shape of a cube (width: 110m, height: 110m, depth: 110m); it has been suggested that the structure looks like a hypercube (a tesseract) projected onto the three-dimensional world. It has a prestressed concrete frame covered with glass and Carrara marble from Italy and was built by the French civil engineering company Bouygues.
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