Grand Palais

You are approaching the Grand Palais, a structure that hides a massive industrial secret behind its ornate stone façade. While it appears to be a traditional classical monument, it is actually a masterpiece of engineering that relies on a staggering eight thousand five hundred tons of steel. This framework is so extensive that it contains more steel than the Eiffel Tower. When it was built for the nineteen hundred Universal Exhibition, this use of metal on such a vast scale was a daring innovation that signaled the arrival of a new, modern era of construction.