16th arrondissement

Highlights: Passy · Auteuil · Trocadéro · Bois de Boulogne · La Muette · Chaillot

Born of the union of the villages of Passy and Auteuil, the 16th arrondissement has become one of the most sought-after addresses in Paris. Between the Bois de Boulogne, the heights of the Trocadéro and streets lined with private mansions, it blends residential calm, rare architectural heritage and a hushed art of living, in a western Paris where elegance keeps to itself.

The villages of the west

Long covered with vineyards, woods and springs, Passy and Auteuil were, under the Ancien Régime, pastoral villages where fashionable Parisian society came to take the waters and breathe the pure air. Passy enjoyed a vogue as a spa town in the 18th century, while Auteuil welcomed literary salons and country houses frequented by Molière, Boileau and, later, Balzac.

Incorporated into Paris in 1860, these villages retained something of their peaceful atmosphere. The house on rue Raynouard where Balzac took refuge, now a museum, still bears witness to that discreet and secluded Passy, set apart from the bustle of the capital.

The Bois and the grand perspectives

A former royal hunting forest, the Bois de Boulogne was ceded to the City in 1852 and entirely redesigned, under Napoleon III, by the engineer Alphand: lakes, waterfalls, bridle paths and racecourses made it the great park of western Paris and the gathering place of Second Empire high society.

On the heights of Chaillot, the palais du Trocadéro, raised for the Exposition of 1878, gave way in 1937 to the palais de Chaillot, whose wings frame the most famous view of the Eiffel Tower, on the far side of the Seine.

The laboratory of modern architecture

The 16th is an extraordinary open-air museum of architecture. It was here that Hector Guimard built, in the late 1890s, the Castel Béranger, a manifesto of Parisian Art nouveau, before going on to design many buildings and mansions with their plant-like lines.

In the 20th century, the arrondissement embraced the boldness of the Modern Movement: Le Corbusier built the villa La Roche here, today the seat of his foundation, while Robert Mallet-Stevens designed an entire street bearing his name. Few neighbourhoods bring together such a density of residential masterpieces.

Museums and the art of living

The neighbourhood concentrates an exceptional museum heritage: the musée Marmottan Monet and its collection of Impressionists, the palais de Tokyo and the musée d'Art moderne, the Cité de l'architecture and the Fondation Louis Vuitton, opened in 2014 in the Bois de Boulogne beneath Frank Gehry's glass sails.

This cultural life is matched by a sporting tradition, from the Parc des Princes to the courts of Roland-Garros and the racecourses of Auteuil and Longchamp, anchoring the arrondissement in the great Parisian occasions.

Living in the 16th

Today, the 16th remains the symbol of a refined residential art of living: broad tree-lined avenues, high-end buildings, private mansions and villas compose a calm and verdant setting, at the gates of the Bois.

To live in the 16th is to choose the serenity of western Paris, between rare architectural heritage, cultural institutions and the nearness of nature, in one of the most coveted neighbourhoods of the capital.