Did you know? There used to be another geode, just like the one at La Villette, in La Défense.

Have you ever noticed the spherical silhouette on the La Défense esplanade? From 1992 to 2000, this Dome housed the world’s largest IMAX theater, delivering total immersion for film buffs. A chapter that would not last more than eight years...

La Villette to La Défense ? By the close of the last century, a true geodesic marvel dominated the Esplanade of La Défense. While this gleaming mirrored sphere still exists today, it now seems slightly eclipsed by the nearby shopping complex and the Arch. Yet, from 1992 until the end of 2000, this colossal steel globe stood proudly on the forecourt: the Dôme. A look back at the history of a monument that captivated an entire generation of cinephiles, in just eight years.

An architectural feat... and cinematic

Even before UGC Ciné Cité moved into its current premises, it was this "Dôme" that fired up fans of big-screen spectacle. Inaugurated in 1992, this futuristic edifice housed an IMAX cinema, the largest in the world at the time of its opening, boasting a giant curved screen and 467 seats tilted at 35 degrees, with a varied lineup for the whole family.

With a 40-meter-diameter frame clad in glass and steel, it reflected the surrounding towers, turning the forecourt into a perpetual visual show—like a giant mirror set in the middle of concrete. Cutting-edge for its time with its glass panels, the sphere would glow after dark.

Why did it disappear?

Despite its iconic look, the Dome ultimately fell victim to the area’s redevelopment and to its lesser-visited neighbor in the La Défense Hill project—the Automobile Museum—whose fates were intertwined. Moreover, the future of films in this format was then highly uncertain. In the late 1990s, the renovation and extension project for the Les Quatre Temps shopping centre sealed its fate, and the Geode closed on Christmas Eve.

In 2006, after years of work, the venue reopened under the UGC Ciné Cité banner. The former IMAX theater, whose screen was ten times larger than the current one, was transformed into a standard screening room, namely Room 16. Far from the Géode in La Villette, inaugurated in 1985, this dome never really managed to establish itself as a major cultural landmark.

Today, only the oldest among us remember it as the perfect meeting spot for a meetup on the La Défense esplanade.

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