Place du Trocadero

The Place du Trocadero forms a grand, semicircular plaza defined by two massive, curving wings of the Palais de Chaillot that frame the view of the Eiffel Tower across the river. Napoleon Bonaparte once envisioned a palace for his son here, but the site remained largely undeveloped until the eighteen sixties. In nineteen thirty-seven, architects replaced an older exhibition building with the current limestone structure, incorporating neoclassical lines that emphasize the broad, open space where crowds gather to watch fireworks over the Seine.