La Rotonde

Transformed into a bar-restaurant, the magnificent ancient Rotonde on Place Stalingrad has become a favoured destination for partying Parisians. A vestige of the old city wall of ancient Paris, the Rotonde was built a year before the French Revolution by Claude Nicolas Ledoux, one of the founders of the neoclassical movement. It only just survived Haussmann, who wanted to knock it down in the aftermath of the fire of Paris in 1871, and the construction of second Metro line in 1903, which also threatened it with destruction. Today, miraculously conserved, the Rotonde is the jewel in the crown of a district that, since the development of the banks of the Ourcq canal, has been enjoying a thorough renaissance.