Grande halle de la Villette

The Grande halle de la Villette stands as a massive iron and glass skeleton stretching across the park. It opened in eighteen sixty-seven as a slaughterhouse, designed to centralize the messy, dangerous business of supplying meat to Paris. Thousands of cattle arrived here by rail each week. Butcher Jules Vallès once described the air thick with the smell of blood and steaming hides. Today, the structure hosts exhibitions and concerts, leaving the livestock trade to history books and the cold metal frame.