Le Carreau du Temple

The Carreau du Temple stands today as an airy, light-filled structure of glass and cast iron, but it exists because five thousand local residents once united to save it from being destroyed. In nineteen seventy-six, the city government planned to demolish this former nineteenth-century market building entirely to make room for a parking lot. The successful petition from the community preserved the site, which was eventually listed as a historical monument in nineteen eighty-two. This act of collective advocacy ensured that one of the last remaining examples of late-nineteenth-century metal-framed architecture in Paris survived to serve as a modern cultural and sports center.