MVRDV

President Sarkozy opens Grand Paris Exhibition and supports MVRDV plan for Charles de Gaulle Airport

(Paris, 29 April 2009) Today the president of France Nicolas Sarkozy has opened the exhibition presenting ten visions for Greater Paris in 2030. In his inaugural speech he mentioned according to Agence France Press the MVRDV plan for a new forest within the noise affected area of Charles De Gaulle Airport.

“The idea of planting a new forest of one million trees on the 2,500 hectares that are noise affected by Roissy deserves further thinking”, AFP quotes from the presidents speech.

The MVRDV vision defines a spatial agenda for the city. It proposes a series of 17 large scale interventions. Among them the ambition to make Paris highly accessible: the creation of a grand central station at the location of Les Halles, underground densification of the Boulevard Périphérique by adding a metro line and two underground motorways ring-roads, the creation of new Grand Axe’s and a subterranean infrastructure band along the Seine. The space liberated by the buried infrastructure is used for a housing program that allows for urban living in pleasant and green environments. Further parts of the vision are investments into transport, nature, education, culture, social cohesion and vast amounts of renewable energy. The sum of all projects can avoid future sprawl and radically transform Paris into one of the densest, most compact and therefore sustainable high quality cities in the world: “Paris Plu(s) petit”.

The exhibition about the future of Grand Paris opened today and will be open until the 22nd of November 2009. www.citechaillot.fr