Finding the Faux Building Façades of Paris

Travel vlogger The Tim Traveler toured the streets of Paris in order to locate the many faux building façades that exist within the city. Like the fake houses in London’s Leinster Gardens, the ones in Paris were built in order to hide industrial work of some sort, but not all of them were done elegantly.

In the 1970s Electricité de France put a substation on Rue Bergère and it was kind of ugly and the residents complained so they thought, ok, why don’t we do what the RATP did, and build a façade in front of it. So they did. But I feel like they didn’t quite understand the bit about blending in.

Paris's Fake Buildings

Tim also located faux façades at 145, rue la Fayette; 44, Rue d’Aboukir; 29, rue Quincampoix; 174, rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis; and others as indicated by his map.

Paris Fake Buildings rue Quincampoix

Paris Fake Buildings rue d'Aboukir

Paris Fake Buildings rue de la Fayette

Paris Fake Buildings rue du Fauborg Saint-Denis

In 2019, French adventurer Vintage Tran not only located these faux façades, but explored their interiors, as challenged by his viewers.

You challenged me to explore fake buildings in Paris, which hides ventilation shafts from the metro!

via Joey Skaggs

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

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