La Défense () is a major

business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

in France, located west of the city limits of

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. It is part of the Paris metropolitan area in the

Île-de-France The Île-de-France (, ; literally "Isle of France") is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France. Centred on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the country and often called the ''Région parisienne'' (; en, Pa ...

region, located in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in the communes of

Courbevoie Courbevoie () is a commune located in the Hauts-de-Seine Department of the Île-de-France region of France. It is in the suburbs of the city of Paris, from the center of Paris. The centre of Courbevoie is situated from the city limits of Pa ...

, La Garenne-Colombes, Nanterre, and Puteaux. La Défense is Europe's largest purpose-built business district, covering , for 180,000 daily workers, with 72 glass and steel buildings (of which 19 are completed skyscrapers), and of office space. Around its

Grande Arche La Grande Arche de la Défense (; "The Great Arch of the Defense"), originally called La Grande Arche de la Fraternité (; "Fraternity"), is a monument and building in the business district of La Défense and in the commune of Puteaux, to the west ...

and esplanade ("le Parvis"), La Défense contains many of the Paris

urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities ...

's tallest high-rises.

Les Quatre Temps The Westfield Les 4 Temps is the main shopping center in the business district of La Défense, in the western suburbs of Paris, on the territory of the commune of Puteaux in the Hauts-de-Seine. In 2019, ''Les Quatre Temps'' is the most visited sh ...

, a large shopping mall in La Défense, has 220 stores, 48 restaurants and a 24-screen movie theatre. The district is located at the westernmost extremity of the '' Axe historique'' ("historical axis") of

, which starts at the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...

in Central Paris and continues along the Champs-Élysées, well beyond the Arc de Triomphe along the

Avenue de la Grande Armée The Avenue de la Grande Armée is an avenue in Paris, France, marking the boundary between its 16th and 17th arrondissements. It was formerly named Avenue de la Porte Maillot as part of Route nationale 13, but was renamed to its present name i ...

before culminating at La Défense. The district is centred in an orbital motorway straddling the Hauts-de-Seine department communes of

, La Garenne-Colombes, Nanterre and Puteaux. La Défense is primarily a business district and hosts a population of 25,000 permanent residents and 45,000 students. La Défense is also visited by 8,000,000 tourists each year and houses an open-air museum.

History

La Défense is named after the statue '' La Défense de Paris'' by Louis-Ernest Barrias, which was erected in 1883 to commemorate the soldiers who had defended Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. In September 1958, the (EPAD) buildings (of which the Esso Tower was the very first) were built and began to slowly replace the city's factories, shanties, and even a few farms. The

Centre of New Industries and Technologies The Centre of New Industries and Technologies (French: Centre des nouvelles industries et technologies, abbreviated CNIT), located in Puteaux, France, is the first building ever to be developed in La Défense, west of Paris, France. It functio ...

(CNIT) was built and first used in 1958. These "first generation" skyscrapers were all very similar in appearance, limited to a height of . In 1966, the Nobel Tower was the first office skyscraper built in the area. In 1970, the RER line A railway was opened from La Défense to Étoile. In 1974, a contract for a Défense-

Cergy Cergy () is a commune in the French department of Val-d'Oise, in northwestern suburbs of Paris. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the " new town" of Cergy-Pontoise, created in the 1960s, of which it is the central and most populated ...

high-speed hovercraft train was signed and soon abandoned. In the early 1970s, in response to great demand, a second generation of buildings began to appear, but the economic crisis in 1973 nearly halted all construction in the area. A third generation of towers began to appear in the early 1980s. The biggest shopping centre in Europe (at the time), the ''Quatre Temps'', was created in 1981. In 1982, the EPAD launched the ''Tête Défense'' competition to find a monument to complete the '' Axe historique'', which eventually led to the construction of

at the west end of the quarter. During the same period, hotels were constructed, the CNIT was restructured, and in 1992, Line 1 of the Paris Métro was extended to La Défense, which made the area readily accessible to even more of the city. On Bastille Day 1990, French electronic composer Jean-Michel Jarre staged an ambitious concert at the site, using the Grande Arche and three of the area's towers as projection screens, and building a pyramidal stage above the road. The free concert, titled simply Paris la Defense, attracted two million spectators, stretching all the way back to the Arc de Triomphe. This beat Jarre's own previous world record for the largest attendance for a musical concert. After Jean Michel Jarre, German DJ

Sash! Sash! (; stylised as SASH!) is a German DJ/ production team, fronted by Sascha Lappessen (born 10 June 1970) who works in the recording studio with Ralf Kappmeier, Karl Xander, and Thomas "Alisson" Lüdke. They have sold over 22 million albums ...

and the singer La Trec have set at La Défense the video clip for their song ''Stay'' in 1997. After a stagnation in new development in the mid-1990s, La Défense is once again expanding and is now the largest purpose-built business district in Europe. Important corporations headquartered at La Défense include

Neuf Cegetel Neuf Cegetel was a French wireline telecommunications service provider and a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). It offered various telecommunications services to consumers, enterprises and wholesale customers, ranking second in the country ...

, Société Générale, TotalEnergies, Aventis, Areva, and Arcelor. The tallest skyscraper, the Tour First belongs to AXA, constructed in 1974. It is high, has 50 floors, and is the highest inhabited building in the Paris area (a title previously held by the

Tour Montparnasse Tour Maine-Montparnasse (Maine-Montparnasse Tower), also commonly named Tour Montparnasse, is a office skyscraper located in the Montparnasse area of Paris, France. Constructed from 1969 to 1973, it was the tallest skyscraper in France until ...

, which was the tallest inhabited building until the Tour First was renovated between 2007 and 2011, bringing it to its current height from a previous ; the tallest structure in Paris is the

Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Locally nicknamed ...

). On 9 September 2008, La Défense celebrated its 50th anniversary with a huge

fireworks Fireworks are a class of low explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large number of devices ...

display. In December 2005, Bernard Bled, CEO & Chairman o
EPAD
(La Defense Management & Development Office) announced an ambitious 9-year development plan called "La Defense 2006–2015". This important modernisation plan has to give a new dimension to the district and focuses on four main axes: regenerate outdated skyscrapers, allow new buildings, improve the balance between offices and residential housing and make the transport of local employees from their homes to La Défense easier. There are 3 aims: building of offices within demolition/rebuilding projects, building of offices within new projects, and building of housing. The government confirmed in July 2006 this plan, which has to be carried out around 2015. It is justified by the strong estate pressure, which plays in favour of building new skyscrapers near Paris. Those constructions have also the advantage to be more economical than little buildings. But it will have to overcome some difficulties: French economy faces a short-term slowdown; the government tries to balance tertiary sector employment in the whole region again, because La Défense today concentrates a major part of those jobs; and traffic is already saturated in the district, while it would need huge investments to extend transport infrastructures. It launched high-profile international competitions and/or construction greenlight of several key tall sustainable development-style skyscrapers such as Tour Signal, Tour Phare, Hermitage Plaza, and

Tour Generali Tour Generali (English: ''Generali Tower'') was a skyscraper planned for construction in the business quarter of La Défense in Courbevoie (Hauts-de-Seine, France). (Note that Generali also owns another prominent high-rise building on Avenue Loui ...

. During said December 2005 Press Conference, EPAD released to the public an elaborate 3D animation film titled "La Défense 2016". Panorama La Défense

Education

Paris La Défense brings together the cluster of

Leonardo da Vinci University Center Leonardo de Vinci University Center (French: ''Pôle universitaire Léonard de Vinci''), is a French private university cluster located at La Défense. History The Leonardo de Vinci University Center, a higher education University center, has ...

and 5 business schools: EDC Paris Business School, ESSEC Business School, ICN Graduate Business School, IESEG School of Management and SKEMA Business School. It is also home to the European School of Paris-La Défense, an international primary and secondary school that was accredited as a

European School A European School ( la, Schola Europaea) is a type of international school emphasising a multilingual and multicultural pedagogical approach to the teaching of nursery, primary and secondary students, leading to the European Baccalaureate as th ...

in 2020.

Area specifications

* Divided into 4 major sectors * * of offices * 1,500 businesses * 180,000 employees * 20,000 residents * of shops (including the ''Quatre Temps'' Shopping Mall) * 2,600 hotel rooms * of flagstone and sidewalk * of greenery * 60 modern art sculptures and monuments File:Paris 06 2012 La Defense monument 3219.jpg, The name of the district comes from the statue of '' La Défense de Paris'' by Louis-Ernest Barrias which commemorates the Parisian resistance during the Franco-Prussian War. File:La Défense, Paris, France at night.jpg, View from Arc de Triomphe at night. File:La Défense and Bois de Boulogne from the Eiffel Tower, 11 June 2017 002.jpg, View from

. File:Centre commercial Les Quatre Temps.jpg, The Mall "

" File:Skylight tower - La Défense - 2017-09-23.jpg, Skylight tower. File:Western part of La Défense as seen from the Grande Arche - 2020-07-07.jpg, Western part of La Défense as seen from the Grande Arche. File:La Défense from the top of the Grande Arche to the east - 2022-08-13.jpg, La Défense from the top of the Grande Arche.

Open-air museum

Besides the representative architecture, the area also houses an open-air museum with 70 statues and pieces of

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...

,
La Défense > Artworks: Guide 2013
'. Leaflet published by Defacto, Établissement public de gestion du quartier d'affaires de la Défense. including the following works: * César, ''Thumb'' (1965) * Joan Miró, ''Two fantastic characters'' (1976) * Alexander Calder, ''Red Spider'' (1976) * Yaacov Agam, ''Fountain'' (1977) * Richard Serra, ''Slat'' (1982) *

Shelomo Selinger Shelomo Selinger (born May 31, 1928) is a sculptor and artist living and working in Paris since 1956. Biography Selinger was born to a Jewish family in the small Polish town of Szczakowa (today part of Jaworzno) near Oświęcim (Auschwitz''Le P ...

, ''The Dance'' (1983) *

Bernar Venet Bernar Venet (born 20 April 1941) is a French conceptual artist. Early life Bernar Venet was born to Jean-Marie Venet, a school teacher and chemist, and Adeline Gilly and was the youngest of four boys. He was brought up in Château-Arnoux-Sai ...

, ''Two Indeterminate Lines'' (1988) *

Takis Takis may refer to: * Takis (snack), a spicy, roll-shaped snack * Takis Christoforidis, a Greek actor * Takis Fotopoulos, a Greek political philosopher * Takis Ikonomopoulos, a Greek football player * Takis Kanellopoulos a Greek film director * ...

, ''Bright Trees'' (1990) *

Igor Mitoraj Igor Mitoraj (Polish pronunciation: ; 26 March 1944 – 6 October 2014) was a Polish artist and sculptor. Known for his fragmented sculptures of the human body often created for large-scale public installations, he is considered one of the most i ...

, ''Tindaro'' (1997) * Emily Young, ''Four Heads'' (2002) * Patrick Blanc, ''Green wall'' (2006) * Louis-Ernest Barrias, ''La Défense de Paris'' (1883) *

François Morellet François Morellet (30 April 1926 – 10 May 2016) was a French contemporary abstract painter, sculptor, and light artist. His early work prefigured minimal art and conceptual art and he played a prominent role in the development of geometrical a ...

, ''La Défonce'' (1990) *

Guillaume Bottazzi Guillaume Bottazzi (born in 1971) is a French visual artist. Biography Guillaume Bottazzi is a French visual artist, born in 1971. At the age of 17, he decided to become an artist as a single activity. He began to study painting in Italy. Bac ...

, ''Peinture de 216 m²'' (2014) File:Lae-bassin-de-Takis.jpg,

, ''Bright Trees'', c. 1990 File:La-fontaine-d-agam.jpg, Yaacov Agam, ''Fountain'', c. 1977 File:Bottazzi-public-art-la-defense-france.jpg,

, ''Untitled'', c. 2014

Tallest buildings

File:Tour First - La Defense - Inauguration 6 mai 2011.jpg, Tour First File:Tour-Total.jpg, Tour Total File:Areva1.jpg, Tour Areva

Completed highrise buildings above 50 m (164 ft) (1967–2022)

Upcoming highrise buildings (2015–2027)

Canceled projects

Tour Sans Fins The Tour Sans Fins (“Endless Tower”) was a tower planned in La Défense that has since been cancelled. The spelling ''Tour Sans Fins'' may, to a native French-speaker, sound like a grammatical mistake as it would normally be written ''Tour Sa ...

(1989): # Hermitage Plaza (2022): #

(2011): # Tour Signal (2009): # Tour Phare (2018):

References

External links

Satellite image from Google Maps

La Défense de Paris

Site officiel de l'EPAD (Établissement Public pour l'Aménagement de la Défense)

Connecting-Paris, web site created by the Chamber of commerce and industry of Paris to help companies setting up in La Defense

Expatriates Magazine
A printed publication distributed within various corporations situated in La Defense helping international employees integrate within the workplace and city

Structurae: Structural engineering and architecture guide to Paris-La Défense
{{DEFAULTSORT:La Defense Financial districts in France Central business districts in France Economy of Paris Tourist attractions in Hauts-de-Seine