La Villette ("a world apart") was a
warehouse district and industrial section of northeastern Paris, stretching within a plain formed between the
Goutte d'Or and the
Buttes-Chaumont, and built around the
Canal de l'Ourcq and the
Canal Saint-Denis. As part of
Haussmann's renovation of Paris,
Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann proposed concentrating all the abattoirs and meat markets on the city's outskirts at
La Villette. Designed by
Jules de Mérindol and Louis-Adolphe Janvier (1818–1878), While the La Villette complex opened in the 1860s with a total of three market halls, only the Grande Halle aux Boeufs, preserved for its architectural value, survives. In 1970, the City of Paris ceded Villette's land and its management to the national government, and four years later, Villette's slaughterhouses ceased operations. In 1979, l'Etablissement Public du Parc de la Villette (EPPV) was created to restore and manage Villette's 55 hectare site;
François Mitterrand's 1982 announcement of
Les Grands Projets' included Parc de la Villette, and in that year, Bernard Reichen and Philippe Robert were selected for the Grande Halle's restoration. Another Grande Halle renovation occurred in 2005–2007. ==Architecture and fittings==