A long-awaited cultural centre designed by architects Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti is nearing completion on the site of Les Halles ? a historic Parisian marketplace demolished in the 1970s.
The centre is scheduled to open in April, eight years after the City of Paris launched a competition for a complete reconstruction of the existing shopping centre Forum des Halles.
Berger and Anziutti's design ? known as the Canopy ? will be crowned by a giant glass roof spanning an area of 270,000 square feet.

This enormous roof will comprise around 18,000 pieces of glass, which will be supported by 7,000 tonnes of steel.
"The dynamic elements of the site guided the idea of the Canopy," said the architects. "Its curvilinear and organic forms are the result of observations and analyses of the natural and human- made forces that act on an urban environment." "Under the vast shelter of the Canopy, some 18,000 glass shells diffuse a soft light whatever the weather forecast, so that the interior temperatures are maintained without undue energy consumption," they added.

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The site comprises a "true urban underground zone" spread over five floors. It extends up to 24-metres-high, and measures 500 metres lengthwise up towards the Place du Cha?telet.
The multileveled centre is organised around two wings ? each of which are used to house 14...