The unpopular modernist development was demolished yet again in 2010, and replaced by the Westfield Forum des Halles, a modern shopping mall built largely underground and topped by an undulating 2.5 hectare canopy.

[6] In the 1850s, Victor Baltard designed the famous glass and iron structure which would house les Halles for over a century and became one of the sights of Paris; this would last until the 1970s.

[1] Two of the glass and cast iron market pavilions were dismantled and re-erected elsewhere; one in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, the other in Yokohama, Japan,[6] and the rest were destroyed.

The Forum des Halles, a partially underground multiple story commercial and shopping centre, designed by Claude Vasconi and Georges Pencreac'h, opened at the east end of the site on 4 September 1979 in the presence of the Mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac.

The critic Oliver Wainwright called the razing "one of the worst acts of urban vandalism of the century", and that the place became a "national embarrassment" with the park "a magnet for drug dealing".

[7] Historian Donato Severo called the events "the most violent act ever committed against the heritage of Paris", with architect Lloyd Alter adding that the replacement complex was "nearly universally reviled for its mean spirit".

[8] Against that background, in 2002 Mayor Bertrand Delanoë announced that the City of Paris would begin public consultations regarding the remodeling of the area, calling Les Halles "a soulless, architecturally bombastic concrete jungle".

[9][10] A design competition for the Forum and gardens was held, with entries from Jean Nouvel, Winy Maas, David Mangin, and Rem Koolhaas.