Paris holds 16 buildings across 7 architectural styles in the catalogue, spanning from Art Nouveau ironwork to post-war Brutalist towers. The most represented style is Modernist, with 7 buildings — largely thanks to Le Corbusier, who left five documented works across the city.
The architectural narrative here divides between two Parises: the historic centre, where Hector Guimard's Art Nouveau facades and Le Corbusier's experimental dwellings occupy tight urban plots, and the peripheral arrondissements, where post-war towers — the Orgues de Flandre, Résidence Vision 80, Olympiades — tested vertical housing at scale. The Centre Pompidou by Piano and Rogers sits at the intersection, a High-tech provocation dropped into the Marais.
What makes Paris distinctive is the density of authorship: a handful of architects — Le Corbusier above all — define the city's modern architectural identity. From the Villa La Roche's purist interiors to the Cité de Refuge's social housing, their work traces the evolution of ideas about how people should live.
