A Guide to the Historical Axis of Paris

Pierre

LAST UPDATED: 27 NOVEMBER 2024

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You may know Paris for its cathedral Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower, its café culture and its amazing museums and art galleries. The French capital is also famous for its fantastic perspective that runs from the Louvre to La Défense. This is the ‘Voie Triomphale’, aka the Historical Axis of Paris.

This line is one of the most prestigious perspectives in the world. In fact, its design has inspired cities such as Buenos Aires, Washington DC, New Delhi and Canberra. In this article, we’ll learn more about the Historical Axis of Paris. We’ll discover the stunning monuments and I reveal to you some stunning facts. 

What is the Historical Axis of Paris?

The Historical Axis, also known in French as “Axe Historique”, “Voie Triomphale” or “Voie Royale” is orientated on a 26° angle.

It follows the course of the Sun from its rising in the East to its setting in the West.

Oddly, this angle of orientation is the same as that of Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral, some 1,000 metres away from the Louvre Palace.

More than just a series of monuments placed along the axis, it seems that a complex symbolism was at work in the mind of the successive urban planners.

The Historical Axis runs through some of Paris’ most celebrated monuments and squares:

• The Louvre: the Glass Pyramid, the equestrian statue of Louis XIV portrayed as ‘Alexander the Great’ in the Cour Napoléon, and the Inverted Pyramid.
• The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel
• Les Jardin des Tuileries and the former Tuileries Palace
• Place de la Concorde and the Luxor obelisk
• Avenue des Champs-Élysées
• The Arc de Triomphe, standing in the centre of the wide Place de l’Etoile
• Avenue de la Grande Armée leading to Porte Maillot
• Porte Maillot
• Avenue Charles de Gaulle in Neuilly-sur-Seine
• Pont de Neuilly
• Esplanade de La Défense
• The Grande Arche de la Fraternité in La Défense
• The Seine-Arche project endeavours to push the axis beyond La Défense, to the Seine.

Let’s move along the Historical Axis of Paris, from East to West, starting from the Louvre.

The Palace of the Louvre

Today the great perspective starts at the Louvre, immediately beyond the Church of St Germain l’Auxerrois.

The crab-shaped Palace was the main residence of the kings of France until 1682, when Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King’, moved his court to Versailles. It currently houses one of the world’s most wonderful museums in a complex that is known as the “Grand Louvre”.

The controversial glass pyramid of the Louvre

President François Mitterrand left his mark with his pharaonic project of “Le Grand Louvre”. He wished to complete it for the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution in 1989. The titanic project comprised of major renovation works and the construction of a new landmark along the Historical Axis: the celebrated (and controversial) Glass Pyramid.

But if you look closer, you’ll notice that the glass pyramid is not aligned with the other monuments on the Historical Axis.

That’s why something had to be added in this vast courtyard of the Louvre…