Arguably the biggest architectural error ever perpetrated on one the world's most beautiful cities, Le Forum des Halles, is to be revamped - and the plans are exciting as much controversy as its construction 30 years ago. A sprawling concrete-and-glass monstrosity, the neon-lit underground shopping centre stands, outmoded and crumbling, on the site occupied for centuries by the central Paris food markets, France's equivalent of Covent Garden. Its construction in the 1970s led to long-running protests as the area known as the belly of Paris became a building site for nearly a decade. It is now run down, vandalised and thoroughly unappealing, and the municipality wants to turn it into a spectacular attraction as popular with visitors as the Eiffel tower, the Pompidou Centre or the Louvre Pyramids.
