Usine de la Société Urbaine d'Air Comprimé

The Usine de la Société Urbaine d'Air Comprimé dominates the street with its massive red brick facade and tall, slender smokestack. In eighteen ninety-one, engineers built this plant to pump pressurized air through a vast network of pipes buried beneath Paris. These lines powered elevators, sewing machines, and even the city's street clocks. Victor Popp, the inventor behind the system, insisted that compressed air would drive the industry of the future. The site eventually became a hub for the French national library's specialized printing press.