Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine

This guide to the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine in Paris follows Jean Pouzadoux, who spent decades in the 1850s pressing wet plaster against France's cathedrals to make exact casts of their carved stone. It traces how Eugène Viollet-le-Duc turned that work into a public gallery in 1882, bringing monuments like the Smiling Angel of Reims and the portal of Vézelay to Paris at life size, and touches on the Le Corbusier apartment later installed upstairs. Walk the length of the gallery and measure a capital against your own outstretched hand.