Place Saint-Sulpice, square in Paris, France
Place Saint-Sulpice is a rectangular public square in the 6th arrondissement of Paris that surrounds the Church of Saint-Sulpice and is framed by stately buildings. The square measures approximately 80 meters (262 feet) wide and 105 meters (344 feet) long and functions as a pedestrian zone with broad pathways that lead around the historic structures.
Servandoni's 1754 design for a semicircular square 120 m wide and 208 m long was never built; only his model house at No. 6 was erected, and its waiting stones remain to its right. Work on the square began in 1757, funded by a city loan authorised by the king in 1767. Successive plans from 1800 to 1812 fixed the present rectangular layout reaching rue Bonaparte, partly on the site of the Saint-Sulpice seminary demolished in 1808. The square was levelled and planted with trees in 1838, and Visconti's fountain was built from 1843 to 1848.
The square is named after the Church of Saint-Sulpice beside it. Since the late 2000s a fair of several weeks is held here each May and June, with salons devoted to poetry, bibliophily, prints, photography, mathematical games and antiques. A newspaper kiosk and a shop selling religious objects stand among the cafés.
The square is mostly pedestrian, with vehicle traffic only along its edges. Metro line 4 stops at Saint-Sulpice and line 10 at Mabillon. The square is 105 metres long and 80 metres wide, with the fountain at its centre, the church to the east and rue Bonaparte to the west; rue du Vieux-Colombier opens at the north-west corner, rue des Canettes and rue Saint-Sulpice at the north-east, rue Henry-de-Jouvenel and rue Palatine at the south-east.
In October 1974 Georges Perec sat for three days in the Café de la Mairie at No. 8 to write Tentative d'épuisement d'un lieu parisien, noting the buses, the fountain and the passers-by. Of the three cafés he used, it is the only one still open; in 1990 it served as a set for Christian Vincent's film La Discrète.
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