The city wakes before dawn.

Stop for a moment and listen to the city. Today you may hear footsteps, conversations and traffic. At the old Les Halles, traders and deliveries would have joined that sound. The central market helped feed Paris. In the nineteenth century, architect Victor Baltard gave it a new form: iron and glass pavilions that let daylight inside. Eventually, large-scale deliveries and the growing city became difficult neighbours. In 1969 the move to Rungis began. The pavilions later disappeared and the district changed. Imagine this space as a place of everyday work, smells and encounters. A city’s history is not only the history of its palaces. It also begins with the people who brought its food each morning.