Palais d'Iéna
Auguste Perret built the Palais d'Iéna in Paris in the late 1930s. The Exposition Universelle of 1937 gave it a purpose: housing a museum devoted to public works. Inside, a hemicycle with three hundred seats sits beneath a double dome.
The museum opened in 1939 and closed in 1955, undone by a lack of visitors. The Second World War interrupted construction, and the rotunda stood unfinished until 1943. The 1950s and 1960s brought reorganization, and the Assembly of the French Union occupied the building for a time. From 1960 the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council made the palace its headquarters. The Assembly of the Western European Union kept its seat here until 2011.
The building ranks as a historic monument, and protection has covered the rotunda and the wing along the Avenue d'Iéna since 1993. Various events take place in its rooms, and film and television crews have used them as a setting. Guided tours let you see the architecture and the history at first hand. Its monumental staircase climbs in one horseshoe sweep.
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