56 years later here the numbers of La Défense:
12 sectors;
310,000 square feet of pavement and sidewalks;
111,000 square feet of green;
1500 businesses;
3,000,000 square feet of office space;
150,000 employees;
30,000 residents.
Only 30,000 residents, in a city corner that seems to be disconnected from the rest of the urban fabric, and that only during the working hours is populated by 150,000 employees and businessmen.
Exploring La Défense you can experience a sensation of emptyness: movement and chaos are confined to shops, commercial buildings and metro stations. Besides that is like floating in an uncertain reality, in the model of a futuristic town inhabited, but not really lived.
Claudio Cerasoli (L’Aquila, 1986). He graduate in 2013 at the ISFCI in Rome, Italy. He works as a freelance.