Axe historique

The Axe historique (French: [aks istɔʁik]; "historical axis") refers to a straightly aligned series of thoroughfare streets, squares, monuments and buildings that extend from the centre of Paris, France, to the west-northwest of the city.

[1] The Axe historique began with the creation of the Champs-Élysées, designed in the 17th century to create a vista to the west, extending the central axis of the gardens to the royal Tuileries Palace.

[2] Between the Tuileries Garden and the Champs-Élysées extension a jumble of buildings remained on the site of the Place de la Concorde until early in the reign of Louis XV, for whom the square was at first named.

Consequently, the older axis extending from the courtyard of the Louvre is slightly skewed to the rest of what has become the Axe historique, but the Arc du Carrousel, at the fulcrum between the two, serves to disguise the discontinuity.

It was not until the 1980s, under president François Mitterrand, that a project was initiated, with a modern 20th century version of the Arc de Triomphe.