Not every Paris balcony belongs to a Haussmann façade. On Rue Fulton in the 13th arrondissement, the Fulton building offers a very different interpretation, glass projections stacked like suspended boxes, catching the light and changing colour with the light.
Its layered balconies give the building a sense of movement, almost as if the façade is shifting depending on where you stand. The windows reflect the changing weather and the surrounding streets, turning an ordinary walk into something unexpectedly architectural.
Windows & Balconies of Paris is a look at the city through its façades, from classic ironwork to modern geometry.
'Beauty' and the 'eye of the beholder' comes to mind!
The Fulton building stands on a site with a remarkable recent past. Before today’s glass balconies and coloured reflections, this address was known for Tour Paris 13, a modest social housing block built in the 1950s for railway workers and working families along the Seine.
When the building was marked for demolition as part of the Paris Rive Gauche redevelopment, its empty apartments found an unexpected second life. Artists moved in, and the tower became a temporary canvas for one of Paris’s most remarkable street art projects. In 2013, more than *80 international artists transformed its rooms, stairwells, and façade into a vast open gallery known as Tour Paris 13, open to the public for just one month before demolition began.
What replaced it was not luxury development but a new generation of social housing. The Fulton building, completed in 2017, brought 87 new social housing apartments to the site, along with shops at street level and the striking modern façade of stacked coloured balconies facing the Seine.
*You can see examples of the 'art' here.
Part of the “Windows & Balconies of Paris” Series
Each Wednesday, we share a glimpse of Paris through its windows and balconies — the quiet details that give the city its rhythm and romance.
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