Usine de la Société Urbaine d'Air Comprimé

The Usine de la Société Urbaine d'Air Comprimé is marked by a massive red brick facade and a slender smokestack that rises forty-six meters into the air. Built in eighteen ninety-one, this plant served as a power station for a sprawling network of pipes buried beneath the streets of Paris. While electricity eventually became the dominant source of energy, compressed air once powered the city’s sewing machines, elevators, beer pumps, and its famous synchronized public clocks.