A national design competition launched in 1982 on the initiative of President François Mitterrand was won by the Danish architect Johan Otto von Spreckelsen and the engineer Erik Reitzel. Construction began in 1985. Spreckelsen resigned in July 1986 and handed his architectural duties to Paul Andreu. The Grande Arche was inaugurated in July 1989 with military parades for the bicentennial of the French Revolution.
It is a cube about 360 feet (110 m) on each side, with a prestressed concrete frame covered in glass and stone. Reitzel said it resembles a three-dimensional projection of a tesseract, and it was meant as a monument to humanitarian ideals. The original Carrara marble tiles were replaced with Vermont granite after they began buckling and falling.
The arch is turned 6.33 degrees off the axe historique, because a Metro and RER station and a motorway lie beneath it. The roof closed in 2010 and reopened in 2017.
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