I glide into Parc de la Villette by boat, gently moving along the Canal de l’Ourcq, when a bold red structure rises from the greenery. It’s not quite a cube, but the suggestion of one. A skeleton of red steel lines. One of the many mysterious Folies in Villette, these abstract shapes are scattered throughout the park, adding bold architecture to the soft edges of Parisian nature.
But what are these red cubes really, and why are they here?
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What are the Folies in Villette?
Those bright red structures in Parc de la Villette were something I hardly noticed for years. Yet they’re scattered all over the park: geometric shapes that sometimes resemble a cube, and other times are impossible to define. There are 26 of them in total, built back in the 1980s, and only when I finally took the time to look into them did I realize how remarkable they actually are.
As I continued my walk through Parc de la Villette, the Folies in Villette kept appearing, always in unexpected places. Their forms are never identical, and their interaction with the landscape changes constantly depending on your angle and movement.
Who designed Les folies de la Villette?
The red cubes weren’t just dropped here by chance. They were dreamed up by the Swiss-French architect Bernard Tschumi, who is as much a thinker as he is a builder. He belongs to that school of deconstructivism, a movement that turns away from neat, classical lines and instead embraces tension, fragments, and unexpected shapes. Back in 1982, Tschumi won the competition to reinvent what was then a rather grim slaughterhouse district in the 19th arrondissement. And instead of giving Parisians another leafy, romantic park, he dared to imagine something entirely different, bold, urban, almost unsettling.
He created an urban cultural park built around a system of points, lines, and surfaces.
What is the the purpose of Folies in Villette?
There are 26 folies, placed on the intersections of a strict 120 x 120 meter grid. Together, they create a spatial rhythm throughout the park, guiding the visitor’s path without confining it. Some folies serve as functional spaces, like cafés, exhibition pavilions, play zones, while others exist purely as architectural markers.
Why are the red cubes in La Villette called ‘Folies’?
The name folie comes from 18th-century French landscape architecture, where it referred to whimsical structures built in gardens, pavilions, towers, or grottoes with no real purpose other than to surprise or delight. Here in La Villette, that same playful spirit remains, but reimagined through the lens of modernism and urban design.Wandering between them, I find myself constantly surprised. Hidden among trees, placed beside footpaths, they seem to appear out of nowhere. Each one is different. But all have vertical and horizontal beams, and some surfaces that frames the space. Often, in my head, I complete the missing lines and imagine a finished cube.
The meaning of the red color
The bold red color of the folies is both a design choice and a nod to the site’s past. Before becoming a park, La Villette was home to Paris’s main slaughterhouses and meat market. The red evokes both the industrial history, iron, blood, machinery, and serves as a sharp visual contrast to the natural elements of the park.
Walking through the trees, that bright red appears again and again, like a punctuation mark in the landscape. In such a green and open space, the folies feel urban, controlled, and strangely grounding. They become reference points.That contrast is what fascinates me most: how these geometric, rigid forms somehow coexist so naturally with grass, water, and wind.
Practical information
The Parc de la Villette is an open, freely accessible space.
📍 211, avenue Jean Jaures, 75019 PARIS
Public transportation.
BUS 75, 151 : Porte de Pantin BUS 139, 150, 152 : Porte de la Villette
Metro line 5 : Porte de Pantin station Metro line 7 : Corentin Cariou or Porte de la Villette stationsTramway line 3B : Porte de Pantin or Porte de la Villette stations
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