How to make Champs Elysees a pleasant stroll, a place of destination for Parisians, and not only for tourists in search of shopping and selfies ? As soon as it leaves the avenue, shopping galleries make gray mine, the side streets are sometimes disturbing. Difficult to cross the artery at two-times to five lanes to the cobbled stoned is akin to an urban motorway leading to the chaos of the place de l’etoile.
The piétonnisation avenue one Sunday a month, from the spring of 2016, began making their urbanity to the Champs-Elysées. But the ambitions at the beginning of the term have been slow to materialize. “There is a lack of urban project of the global City of Paris,” says Eric Donnet, chief executive officer of Groupama Immobilier, who is leading several major operations on the avenue.
In 2014, the architect Jean-Paul Viguier was delivered to the Committee of the Champs-Elysées an analysis of, and recommendations to lift the urban for the ” most beautiful avenue in the world “, which showed serious signs of fatigue, between mass tourism, dilapidation of some buildings and degradation of the public space. “At the time, we had working sessions with the departments of the City for one year, after which the municipality had announced the production of a white Paper to the Champs-Elysées… that we are still waiting,” says the architect.
A bikeway planned in 2019
However, work is initiated : a cycle track, which is today sorely needed, must be arranged in 2019 of both sides of the avenue. On the roundabout, is another site that is already well visible. The fountains follow from the month of January a makeover. With eight months of delay, the city has undertaken the restoration of the six basins, including the water jets are stopped for more than twenty years.
Paris has commissioned two figures of contemporary design,…
