Musée de la Défense

A trip to this space located just below the Espace-Info information centre is a real highlight. Drawings, architectural plans and scale models trace the development of the district from the 17th century to the present day. Especially fascinating are the projects that were never built: the 750m-tall Tour Tourisme TV (1961) by the Polak brothers; Hungarian-born artist Nicholas Schöffer’s unspeakable Tour Lumière Cybernetique (1965), a ‘Cybernetic Light Tower’ that, at 324m, would stand at the same height as the Eiffel Tower; and the Tour sans Fin, a ‘Never-Ending Tower’ that would be 425m high, but just 39m in diameter. Ouch.