GRAND ET PETIT PALAIS, Introduction

Hi, I'm James, your personal guide. Together with MyWoWo, I'd like to welcome you to one of the wonders of the world.

Today I'll accompany you through the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, which are some of the most magical places in Paris!

You might not know, but one of the rules set by the International Commission for Large Expositions stipulates that all pavilions built for the events should be dismantled after the end of the exposition in order to respect the provisional nature and exceptional aspect of the event itself. But the Parisian organizers have always been very crafty in dealing with this rule: for example, two of the major pavilions built shortly before the Universal Exposition of 1900 were not dismantled thanks to a simple trick where they claimed that the buildings had not been "specially built" for the event.

The two "pavilions" built for the Exposition are those still standing before you, the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. As I mentioned in the MyWoWo files about the Eiffel Tower, the tower was another exposition construction that remained after the end of the 1889 Exposition, despite the great deal of controversy it aroused....