Europe
Zurich: a series of refresher courses
"Zurich, a city on the move": the slogan will certainly come as a surprise to those who still imagine Switzerland's business capital as a tucked-away metropolis, as discreet as a banking secret, where the only source of life is the lapping of the lake's pure water. A strange cliché for a city that, at the beginning of the last century, saw the birth of the...
Madrid Azca
The acronym AZCA stands for "Asociación Mixta de Compensación de la Manzana A de la Zona Comercial de la Avenida del Generalísimo" (Mixed Association for Compensating the Manzana A of the Avenida del Generalísimo Commercial Area). It's easy to see why the people of Madrid have chosen this acronym for the city's main business district, which officially runs along the Paseo de la Castellana between the Nuevos Ministerios buildings and the...
Vienna Donau-City
In Vienna, there is now life far beyond the Ring Road. And even behind the Danube, thanks to the emergence of a new business district on the north bank of the river that borders the Austrian capital. For Vienna Donau-City - Vienna DC for those in a hurry - the story begins with a fiasco: the...
Barcelona: the Eixample
A European star in urban tourism, Barcelona has got into the habit, over the last fifteen years or so, of piling up construction sites to constantly surprise. But today, as in the past, the Eixample district remains the most active centre of this booming city. Of course, there's the timeless charm of the Barri Gòtic, the miracle of the...
Paris & Ile-de-France: the strength of the banks of the Seine
Immobile, backward-looking, irreformable... this is the sad portrait of France in 2006 as seen by the bitter prophets of hexagonal decadence. They are quick to forget that behind its noisy nostalgia and its taste for the most vindictive slogans, France also knows how to evolve in silence. And this is even truer for its...
Amsterdam : Zuidas
2.3 million square metres of living space spread out - or rather piled up - over 300 hectares, between the city centre and the airport: the Zuidas district, to the south of Amsterdam, is probably one of the most ambitious urban projects in Europe. Better still: Zuidas is no longer a project, it's already a reality. And although it will be a quarter of a century before...
