Citéco | Cité de l'Économie

The Hôtel Gaillard sits on the corner, distinguished by its mock-Renaissance towers and steep slate roofs that look entirely out of place among the nearby Parisian townhouses. Émile Gaillard, a wealthy banker with a passion for the Middle Ages, commissioned the building in eighteen seventy-eight to house his massive collection of medieval furniture and art. He insisted his architect copy the details of the fifteenth-century Hôtel de Langeais. The Banque de France later seized the property, turning the private sanctuary into a neighborhood vault.