The only survivor of the twelve iron and glass pavilions designed by Victor Baltard to modernize the business coronary heart of Paris, No. 8 now stands in Nogent-sur-Marne. A valuable testimony to the commercial structure of the Second Empire, it has been having fun with a second life since 1976.
We did not realize it, however within the nineteenth century, Les Halles de Paris regarded very totally different from the best way they do at present. On the behest of Napoleon III, architect Victor Baltard constructed giant halles within the heart of the capital to facilitate commerce – twelve buildings constructed from iron, forged iron and glass. Erected between 1850 and 1870, these Baltard pavilions served their function properly, however on the finish of the Fifties, the federal government wished to switch the exercise to Rungis, which led to the demolition of all these pavilions to make approach for at present’s Forum.
All of them? No, there’s one diehard left: pavilion quantity 8, which housed the egg and poultry market, miraculously saved and preserved as an affidavit to the capital’s architectural previous. Dismantled piece by piece, it was purchased again by the city of Nogent-sur-Marne, to be reassembled on the location of the Nogent-Vincennes locomotive depot, the place it was inaugurated in 1976 and is now used to host gala evenings, TV exhibits and commerce gala’s! A distinctive vestige of Victor Baltard’s masterpiece, revolutionary for its time: gentle and ethereal.
The Pavillon Baltard can also be residence to theformer Gaumont-Palace cinema organ, a listed historic monument acquired by town in 1976.
