★★★★★ 5.0
Discover
La Villette
Every night, 35 hectares of former slaughterhouse grounds stay wide awake while the rest of Paris sleeps. You're standing in the largest park in Paris, where for over a century until 1974, the bellowing of cattle echoed across these grounds as 20,000 head arrived weekly for slaughter. Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi took this industrial wasteland and scattered 26 blood-red folies across the landscape like architectural punctuation marks, each housing a different cultural surprise. That fountain ahead of you? Cattle once drank from it when it stood at Place de la République, before being relocated here during Haussmann's renovations. Walk toward the gleaming mirror sphere of the Géode cinema, and you'll pass over a decommissioned 50-meter military submarine called L'Argonaute, now permanently docked as a museum piece since 1991. The Canal de l'Ourcq still flows through the heart of this cultural labyrinth, connecting the largest science museum in Europe to concert halls where 2,000 people once spontaneously danced under the stars during a screening of Grease. This is where Paris transforms industrial memory into pure imagination, 24 hours a day.
Did You Know?
- La Villette was once known as 'La Cité du Sang' (The City of Blood) due to its history as Paris’s central cattle market and slaughterhouse, where up to 4,500 cattle were processed daily in the late 19th century—a vivid legacy from Napoleon III’s era that shaped the area’s gruesome nickname and industrial identity.
- The park’s design, by architect Bernard Tschumi, features a bold, avant-garde system of 26 bright red 'folies'—small, geometric pavilions scattered throughout the grounds—that serve as playful landmarks and activity hubs, creating a unique urban park focused on culture rather than traditional greenery.
- Parc de la Villette is home to the Géode, a giant mirrored sphere that houses one of the world’s largest hemispherical movie screens, making it a must-visit for families and a marvel of modern architecture; it’s also the site of the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Europe’s largest science museum, offering interactive exhibits perfect for curious kids and adults alike.