Architectural Oddities in Paris

Discover 17 architectural oddities in Paris.

Permanently Closed

Le Stryge.

Le Stryge

This demon atop the Notre-Dame de Paris looks utterly bored.

Notre Dame du Travail Church.

Notre Dame du Travail Church

The industrial architecture honors the laborers who brought the Exposition Universelle of 1900 to life.

What looks like an ordinary building is actually a wall.

145 Rue Lafayette

What looks like a normal building is really a hollow facade hiding a subway vent.

Exterior of Centre Pompidou

Centre Pompidou

An "inside out" building in the historical center of Paris, featuring Europe’s largest modern art museum.

A relic of St. Genevieve

The Relics of St. Genevieve at St-Etienne-du-Mont

The remaining relics of the patroness of Paris lie in a chapel under a striking double spiral staircase.

Le Louxor Palais du Cinema

Egyptian Revival movie palace abandoned for decades and restored in 2013.

Le Droit Humain Masonic Lodge

The historic Masonic Lodge in which the first-ever female Mason was initiated.

The Gravestone Courtyard

Walk upon the mementos of the dead in this Parisian courtyard paved with medieval tombstones.

The building today

The One-Two-Two

This innocuous-seeming building is actually the remnant of a major wartime brothel.

Docteur Pinel liberating the hysterical women from their chains - Tony Robert Fleury - 1805

The Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital

Pitié-Salpêtrière was the dumping grounds for women who received the dreaded diagnosis of "hysterical."

Cannonball of the Hotel de Sens

A lone cannonball remains lodged in the walls of the Hotel de Sens as a sober reminder of a revolution.

Jules Lavirotte's 29 Avenue Rapp

A scandalous Art Nouveau collaboration that set Paris all atwitter at the turn of the century.

The Grand Lodge of France

One of the oldest masonic museums in Paris.

Arènes de Lutèce

Remains of Roman amphitheater hidden in a sleepy quarter of Paris.

Petite Ceinture

Abandoned railway line circling the city of Paris.

Pont de la Concorde

Pont de la Concorde

This bridge was constructed from the rubble of the infamous Bastille.