A great idea for a photographic experience is to visit a modern business area. They are crammed with buildings, people, and often, art and gardens. They are often cities within a city. The city architecture is ideal for capturing :
- reflections,
- symmetry,
- long straight lines,
- angles,
- colour
- monochrome
- sunbursts, and
- shadows
Perhaps not everything in one afternoon. You get the idea. City architecture gives you great scope to practice techniques and be imaginative.
La Défense, Paris, France
My local city architecture is at La Défense, near Paris, France. You may have seen it from the Champs Elysées. It is named after the statue which still stands at street level in the centre of a large square. La Defense is built around its parvis and this means that you are almost always above street level.
Getting there
So you are tempted by the idea. How do you get to La Défense? Firstly you should note that it is often referred to as Paris La Défense, because it is very close to the city. But it is not actually in the city.
Car
Getting there by car is possible with many car parks available. La Defense is, for a large part, enclosed in a boulevard which is sort of pear shaped. If you miss your exit it may be easier to go around.
Public transport
The best way to get to La Défense is public transport. It has :
- International and local bus stations
- Express city trains RER A
- Local trains
- Metro M1
- Tram
- Bicycle
- Scooters
Many arrive at dedicated stations under street level. Therefore you will have to work your way up to the parvis level. Perhaps the only gotcha I can think of is that the metro station is part of the standard city zone. Because of this M1 is a cheap and easy way of getting there. The RER A is quicker but classed as zone 3 so yoiu need a special ticket to get from the Champs Elyséés to La Défense on the RER.
I will not reinvent the wheel, they have a web site that gives much more information. It will open in a new tab, just click here.
How long to allow
It is a large area, and takes around 30 minutes to walk the 2.5km end to end. And if you’re going to be zigzagging and stopping to take pictures you really should be looking at around an hour minimum. This will give you chance to see a large part of the area. You can download a detailed map available here.
There are some impressive building to see:
- The twin towers of the Société Générale in the Valmy area, in my dreams a setting sun between the 2 would be spectacular
- The Grande Arche, at the railway end of the Parvis. It’s a cube with 2 faces missing.
- The CNIT, built in 1958, it was the first building and has a unique triangular structure.
There are also many pieces of sculpture spread across the whole area.
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and Urban Settings from my visit to La Défense in 2021