This monument to the 200,000 French people sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust is a model of simplicity. I admire the way it manages to be brutal and emotional at the same time. And I love the concept of it – a concrete bunker entered via a claustrophobic narrow staircase, leading to a courtyard where nothing of the city can be seen except the waves of the Seine lapping through a grilled portal, the noise of Paris chillingly muffled. I think it's a marvel.
As it's buried away at the tip of the park behind Notre Dame, most people miss it. On the other hand it's impressive how it refuses to impose itself on its surroundings, which is more than can be said for the plethora of sub-Docklands, neo-yuppie apartment blocks springing up across London at an alarming rate.
The one obscuring the view of Battersea Power Station from the park opposite is a scandal, but the most hideous of all has to be St George's Wharf on Vauxhall Bridge. It's a ghastly, cynical building that not only looks unloved but gives the impression of having been designed in a conference room by a particularly myopic committee.
Ian MacMillan is series producer for Imagine, BBC1's art and culture series presented by Alan Yentob. The new series starts on 2 June.
