Place de la Concorde

Between the Champs Elysées and the Jardins des Tuileries
Paris, France

Contributed by Project for Public Spaces

A public plaza that has degenerated into a giant traffic funnel.

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Why It Doesn't Work

Place de la Concorde is the worst of all public spaces in Paris because it exists solely to move traffic. This square, the biggest in Paris, is 21 acres large. Calling it the Place de la Concorde ("Square of Peace") is the height of irony. Its history of slaughter, (over 1100 people were beheaded there and another 133 trampled to death), is recalled by the racing traffic that constantly threatens to run over the substantial flow of pedestrians traveling between the Tuileries and the Champs Elysées. Hopes of walking comfortably from the Louvre, through the Tuileries, to the Champs Elysées are immediately dashed upon encountering this asphalt wasteland.

Nowhere can you find so vast an expanse of vehicle-dominated space that is less necessary than Place de la Concorde. The vehicular space could be reduced by 80% and there would still be a smooth flow of traffic. Instead of an enormous void, this could be the central point in all of Paris -- a historic destination, a gateway/transition space, and a great event center. From its vantage point there are fabulous vistas of many noteworthy monuments. More than any other single space in Paris, Place de la Concorde could be transformed from a spectacular failure into a sublime, transcendent urban space.

User Comments:

01/01/06 Marc Naimark said:: I must agree with this comment. The original place de la Concorde was a masterpiece of 18th century architecture and urbanism. Time and poor management have taken their toll, and it is hard to imagine today finding a political leader willing to make the decision to reduce the space for cars.
10/04/06 Clarisse Brodbeck said:: But I disagree... For me, it's the most beautiful plaza in the world, and I have lived in 8 countries! It is full of traffic, but also full of space, views, perspecives, and splendid architecture and sculpture, which you forgot to mention... It's at its best at daybreak, with the rosy dawn light on the stones (and, yes, nearly traffic-free). And I have seen it at that time, the year when I went to a high school at the other end of the city, and crossed it by bus every day, as the seasons changed, and also at night, and all the colours of daylight, with the sky all around it... Traffic is only one part of it!
03/05/08 david hanser said:: As difficult as it may be to do, the traffic in the Place de la Concorde must be looked past...literally. Not only was the Place a brilliant design originally, it has been developed (except for the traffic) with remarkable respect for the past over the past two and a half centuries. Among other things: the cross axis playing the temple fronts of the Madeleine against that of the Palais Bourbon, both added well after the Place was finished; the extension of this axis across the Pont de la Concorde, also a later addition; and the comparable, if partly serendipitous, play of scale and form on the main or grand axis from the Arc du Carrousel to the Arc de Triomphe to the Grand Arche. No other urban space, to my knowledge, encompasses and unites so vast an urban area. The current mayor of Paris is decreasing the width of streets, widening sidewalks, and encouraging other ways to discourage the automobile, so maybe something will be done about traffic at Concorde. I only know that several years ago the Place was closed off for a Bastille Day concert, and within a very short time there was gridlock in the city.