Tour de Jean-sans-Peur, Paris

Tour de Jean-sans-Peur is the surviving stone tower of the dukes of Burgundy’s Paris residence, built for Duke John the Fearless. Its construction ran from 1409 to 1411, after he arranged the killing of Louis of Orléans in 1407; the deed helped set off the conflict pitting the Armagnac faction against the Burgundians. The tower was designed to project authority, but it also offered protection, with two bright, heated rooms near the upper part for refuge.

Look at the tower’s massive stonework and imagine the residence that once extended around it: the tower is the last remaining fragment of that ducal mansion. Inside, its great spiral stair served the vanished wing, and its vault turns masonry into a carved plant, with oak, hops and hawthorn growing through the design. A carpenter’s plane appears in the decoration as John’s emblem, chosen in opposition to his rival’s club.

The chambers also had wall-built latrines warmed by the back of a fireplace. Hidden behind later buildings for centuries, the tower emerged again when rue Étienne-Marcel was cut through in the 1860s. It opened to visitors in 1999.