Les Voûtes

Any self-respecting Parisian keeps their distance from the soulless stretch of development that surrounds the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, with one exception: Les Frigos ('The Refrigerator'), a former storage depot for refrigerated railway wagons, no less. Once the facility had been shut down and the refrigeration turned off, it wasn't long before destitute artists began to squat inside. By 1996, they'd also colonised its underground vaults; today, Les Voûtes has become an unlikely venue for concerts, exhibitions, and a whole lot of multidisciplinary artistic happenings. All in all, a great place to 'chill'.