France Science Museums - Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie

[2009-02-28]

About us:

La Cité, an architectural adventure

The first records of La Villette date back to 1198. In the 18th century, La Villette was still a village, a small farming community just outside Paris, an ancient point of passage towards the North, the East and Germany. Parisians came to the l'Octroi rotunda built by Ledoux to stroll and taste the famous "guinget" (a local white wine) in cafés. In 1812, Napoleon had a canal dug from the Ourcq to supply Paris with water and named it the Bassin de la Villette. It was also open to boats.

From 1867, the Paris abattoirs were united in a single complex in La Villette. It was a vast "city of blood, meat and its trade" stretching over 40,000 square metres and its Grande Halle held up to 4,600 cattle. The bell at the top of the square Tour de l'Horloge (Clock Tower) governed the business of the abattoirs and their three thousand workers implacably. In 1974, the last ox was slaughtered. In 1979, development of the 136 acres of waste land and buildings was begun. One of the projects then drawn up by the State was the construction of a National Museum of Science and Technology.

In 1980, twenty-seven architects were consulted with a view to the creation of a "National Museum of Science, Technology and Industry" in an unfinished building intended for another purpose: the great abattoir sales hall whose construction was halted in 1973. It was to have been an abattoir, but it became the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie. The man behind this vast development project was the architect Adrien Fainsilber.

The plans submitted by Adrien Fainsilber were the result of study on the scale of the site and its environment. It established a special relationship between the Cité and the park, taking as much advantage as possible of its specific nature.
The building's design was based on three themes: water, a pivotal theme linking the world and life, surrounds the main building; plant life has a place inside the Cité in three large bioclimatic greenhouses facing the park; light, "source of energy of the living world", brightens the permanent exhibition areas via two domes 17 metres in diameter.

Address:

Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie - 30, avenue Corentin-Cariou - 75019 Paris.

Contact us:

Tel.: + 33 (0)1 40 05 70 00
E-mail: citeservice [AT] cite-sciences.fr
Web: www.cite-sciences.fr