Editing Les Halles (section)

===Major conversion===
Unable to compete in the new market economy and in need of massive repairs, the colourful ambience once associated with the bustling area of merchant stalls disappeared in 1973, when Les Halles was demolished (fruit, flower and vegetable markets had moved in 1969, and only the butchers at the meat markets remained); the wholesale market was relocated to the suburb of [[Marché d'Intérêt National de Rungis|Rungis]].<ref name=NYT011373/> Two of the glass and cast iron market pavilions were dismantled and re-erected elsewhere; one in the Paris suburb of [[Nogent-sur-Marne]], the other in [[Yokohama]], Japan,<ref name="auto"/> and the rest were destroyed. The site was chosen to host the station [[Châtelet–Les Halles|Châtelet–Les-Halles]], the point of convergence of the [[Réseau Express Régional|RER]], a new network of express underground railway lines through the city. Three lines leading out of the city to the south, east and west were to be extended and connected in the new underground station. For several years, the site of the markets was an enormous open pit, nicknamed {{lang|fr|le trou des Halles}} ("the hole of Les Halles"), regarded as an [[eyesore]] at the foot of the historic [[Église Saint-Eustache, Paris|church of Saint-Eustache]]. The construction on Paris's new central railway hub was completed in 1977.

[[File:Les-halles.jpg|thumb|The modernist first incarnation of Forum des Halles, in 2007]]
The '''{{lang|fr|Forum des Halles|italic=no}}''', a partially underground multiple story commercial and shopping centre, designed by [[Claude Vasconi]] and Georges Pencreac'h, opened at the east end of the site on 4 September 1979 in the presence of the [[Mayor of Paris]] [[Jacques Chirac]]. A public garden covering {{convert|4|ha}} opened in 1986.<ref name="auto" /> Many of the surrounding streets were pedestrianized.

The demolition of Baltard's market hall structure and the design of the spaces that replaced it proved highly controversial over the subsequent decades. The critic Oliver Wainwright called the razing "one of the worst acts of urban vandalism of the century", and that the place became a "national embarrassment" with the park "a magnet for drug dealing".<ref>{{cite news |last=Wainwright |first=Oliver |date=2016-04-06 |title=A custard-coloured flop: the €1bn revamp of Les Halles in Paris |language=en-GB |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/apr/06/les-halles-paris-architecture-custard-coloured-flop |access-date=2023-02-15 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Historian Donato Severo called the events "the most violent act ever committed against the heritage of Paris", with architect Lloyd Alter adding that the replacement complex was "nearly universally reviled for its mean spirit".<ref>{{cite news |last=Alter |first=Lloyd |date=2016-04-06 |title=Sold for scrap: great city buildings that were stupidly demolished |language=en-GB |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/06/great-city-buildings-demolished-destroyed-les-halles |access-date=2023-02-15 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>