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Headline: Paris’ Iconic Champs-Élysées Set To Be Redesigned As An 'Extraordinary Garden'

Caption: France’s famous tree-lined Champs-Elysées is set to undergo a £225m (€250m) green makeover. The Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche that the work would transform the 1.9 km (1.2 mile) Parisian avenue into “an extraordinary garden". The news has been welcomed by the Champs-Elysées committee, an organisation which has been campaigning for a major redesign of the area since 2018. The committee, made up of local community leaders and businesses, invited architect Philippe Chiambaretta and his firm PCA-Stream to draw up designs for the transformation of what is often referred to as “the world’s most beautiful avenue”. The planned work was first unveiled in 2019 and with the help of the public, plans for the area were drawn up. These include reducing space for vehicles by half, pedestrianising roads and increasing the number of trees planted to help improve air quality. The transformation will be carried out in stages, beginning with the redevelopment of the Place de la Concorde square at the south-east end of the avenue. This is set to be completed by the time that the city hosts the Olympic Games in 2024; the rest of the avenue is expected to be renovated by 2030. Members of the committee, who welcomed the mayor's announcement, released a statement saying: “The legendary avenue has lost its splendour during the last 30 years. It has been progressively abandoned by Parisians and has been hit by several successive crises: the gilets jaunes, strikes, health and economic.” The Champs-Élysées was first laid out in 1670 but was redesigned by Baron Haussmann in the mid 1800s and was last renovated 25 years ago. It is used for the annual Bastille Day parade on 14 July and is also the finishing stretch for the Tour de France.

Keywords: feature,photo feature,photo story,architecture,design,Paris,makeover,Champs-Élysées,green,future,garden

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