Every design for Gennevilliers

Wrapped inside a loop of the Seine just north-west of Paris, Gennevilliers takes its shape from the river that made it. The name goes back to the Latin Gennovillare, the estate of a man called Genno, and for most of its history this was flat, sandy ground. In 1929 a fifth of its territory was split off to form Villeneuve-la-Garenne, and the town that remained turned towards industry and the water.

The Parc des Sévines tells that story better than any plaque. A gravel quarry once opened at its far end, one of many that stripped the river's ancient deposits of pebbles and sand to feed the concrete boom of the twentieth century, while carts and then lorries brought rubble back to fill the pits. Over time the holes were levelled and green spaces such as the Parc des Chanteraines took root. Meanwhile the Port of Gennevilliers grew into the main river port of Paris, with its long basins and warehouses, and the Hôtel de Ville went up in 1977.

Today Métro Line 13, the RER C and the tram tie it to the city. Yet the clearest picture is still the simplest one: barges waiting in the basins, and the Seine curling round them.