The new geography of Paris

ON THE SITE of a former piano factory in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, a 40-storey tower is being converted into a gleaming luxury hotel with a rooftop bar. A short walk away, beside the river Seine, builders are finishing off a vast new “eco-neighbourhood” of flats, lined with saplings and lamp posts made from recycled scaffolding. These will briefly lodge 10,500 athletes during the Paris Olympic games, which take place from July 26th-August 11th. Across the railway tracks, on land that formerly housed a gasworks, workers are completing a brand-new aquatics centre, under a gently curved timber frame of French and Finnish pine.