Best Unknown View in Paris

The Institute du Monde Arabe in Paris

The view from the cafe terrace atop the Institute du Monde Arabe, a bizarre building which mounts intriguing exhibitions and includes a tented bazzar of Arabian crafts.

This might very well be my favorite viewpoint in Paris. The cafe's little outdoor terrace offers a fantastic view down the Seine to the backside of Nôtre-Dame—all those flying buttresses—and the building itself is a trip, if a bit hard to explain.

The exterior walls of this institute of Arab studies are made up of mechanized metal irises—sort of like on an old SLR camera—of varying diameters sandwiched between sheets of glass. A computer controls the opening and closing of these millions of tiny round holes so that when any one wall is in the shade, the irises on it open fully up to let in lots of light and heat, but when the sun hits them they all squinch up tight to block out the rays. The idea is to help regulate the building's interior temperature with minimal use of artificial A/C and heating—though the bugs clearly were never properly worked out, since it only appers to work properly up to a point, with plenty of irises at varying levels of openness no matter what their neighbors are doing.

Other reasons to love the Institute: it hosts excellent regular exhibits on Middle Eastern and Arab culture and artifacts, and on the little plaza out front there's a tented building turned into a permanent bazaar of Arabian crafts. Also, it's really close to the Jardin des Plantes.

quai Saint-Bernard at the pont de Sully (Métro: Jussieu)
www.imarabe.org
Closed Mondays

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