Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad

The Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad is defined by the Rotonde de la Villette, a severe, circular limestone building sitting at the edge of the Bassin de la Villette. Claude-Nicolas Ledoux designed this structure in the seventeen eighties as a tax barrier for the Farmers General. He gave it grand, neoclassical proportions to collect duties on goods entering Paris. When workers moved to burn it during the French Revolution, the building survived, later serving as everything from a grain store to a wine depot.