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Paris 2024: a first look at the newly restored Grand Palais

Paris 2024: a first look at the newly restored Grand Palais

The timeless Paris monument and exhibition space has been restored to host fencing and taekwondo events under its soaring glass dome. From the upcoming Paris special issue, out on June 15.

Light streams in through the Grand Palais’ 17,500-square-metre, barrel-vaulted steel and glass ceiling. Laurent Kronental

Stephen ToddDesign editor

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Paris at Easter was in turbocharged preparation mode for the Olympics. Boulevards were being torn up, some 55 kilometres of new bike lanes were laid in, Metro lines extended, plans to get the Seine swimmable tenaciously intact. And every day, at some seemingly random time, a squad of a dozen or so riot police vans, blue lights blazing and sirens blaring, would dart across town apparently running anti-terrorism drills. To say it was a little lively or un peu animé would be an understatement.

But nowhere seemed more animated than inside the Grand Palais, where almost 1000 workers were toiling away daily to get the Beaux-Arts behemoth that lies between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine into tip-top shape to host the fencing and taekwondo competitions.

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Stephen Todd
Stephen ToddDesign editorStephen Todd writes for The Australian Financial Review's weekly Life&Leisure lift out and AFR Magazine. Email Stephen at stephen.todd@afr.com

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Original URL: https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/design/olympics-ready-a-first-look-at-paris-s-newly-restored-grand-palais-20240506-p5fp5u