Every design for Évry

The Seine runs along the whole eastern edge of Évry, climbing from the river onto a plateau where the Hurepoix, the Gâtinais and the Brie meet. To the south lies its old rival Corbeil-Essonnes, to the north Ris-Orangis, and the river and the route nationale 7 have always been its two lifelines.

The Musée Paul Delouvrier is named after the planner behind the new towns of the Paris region, and it is the right place to start, because Évry was rebuilt almost from scratch. A farming village called Évry-Petit-Bourg became, within a generation, the prefecture of the Essonne, a bishop's seat with a strikingly modern cathedral, a university town and a business hub. Older traces survive between the tower blocks: the Château de Beauvoir, the Lavoir Aguado, the remains of the Ancien pont d'Evry. The Agora shopping centre became the town's meeting point, and the Grand Parc its back garden.

You know Évry does not look like anywhere else, and that is exactly why it is yours. Keep it with you, whatever name the town goes by now.