Although Dr. Smith’s fun fact before our trip to the top of the Eiffel was that it was only built to stand for 20 years, I made it to the top and back down again in one piece. From a planning perspective, Paris is a marvel from the sky. As a pedestrian in the city, sometimes I find the diagonals much more confusing than D.C.’s grid system. In terms of preserving the skyline and creating terminal vista’s for important monuments, Paris really knows how to show off. Being so high shows you exactly what the planners had in mind. The height restrictions on other buildings highlights the outstanding monuments and attractions made to be seen, and they are visible from many places throughout the city. Although the diagonals may be somewhat confusing from the ground, when you see them meet from above, that point is usually for something important, which can help center you (as opposed to relying on a boring grid). The vista’s are stunning from the ground, but from above it allows for the bigger picture to come into focus.
Also, through my travel over our long weekend to Brussels and Amsterdam, I’ve noticed that they are not as concerned with creating visually appealing planning in the same way. Brussels tries in a couple places, but some of their buildings are too tall and the vista aren’t complete. Amsterdam didn’t have a true vista in my opinion. One that I felt could potentially be considered a terminal vista was the Amsterdam Centraal train station. It is a very large building and you have a pretty good view of it from a couple streets further into the city than the outer ring (but not more than a couple blocks). None of these angels truly framed the station as to say ‘this is our big important building!’. Personally, for my day trip it did help orient me since I travelled by train, so I knew where I had come from. Still, this was only applicable from a couple of streets. This is even less helpful or notable if the train station is not somewhere you need to be familiar with. Nothing compared to the overtly obvious attention to every detail that Paris has made in it’s planning.