Cirque d'hiver

The Cirque d'Hiver stands as a rare survivor of nineteenth-century Parisian entertainment architecture. While it appears to be a perfect circle from the street, it is actually a twenty-sided polygon. This clever geometric design allowed the architect, Jacques Hittorff, to construct a self-supporting roof that requires no central poles. By eliminating those internal supports, he ensured that every member of the audience would have a completely unobstructed view of the ring, a significant innovation for circus design at the time of its completion in 1852.