Monaco
AA-2026-14A8B1
On the image
Someone in Monaco decided that the view from the Palace ramparts, free to the naked eye, could be improved for a coin. The fixed telescope in the foreground promises a closer look at a skyline that was in the middle of rebuilding itself, tower blocks pushing up between the old ochre roofs like a bet the principality was making on its own future.
The little knot of tourists at the wall does not need the telescope; they can already see the whole town spilling down to the harbour hills, which is rather the point of paying to see it twice. Monte Carlo in this decade was selling itself hard as a place where old-world stone and brand-new concrete could share a view without embarrassment. Nobody in the frame looks embarrassed.
The clock tower cropped at the corner belongs to the Prince's Palace, which has been keeping time over this exact scene for centuries, largely unbothered by whatever gets built downhill from it.
The historian's note
This view looks southeast from the ramparts near the Prince's Palace of Monaco towards the district of Monte Carlo, across the harbour hillside of the principality. By the 1960s Monaco was undergoing a construction boom, with new high-rise apartment and hotel towers rising amongst the nineteenth-century Belle Époque buildings visible in the middle distance, a period of rapid vertical development driven by the territory's limited land area and its postwar growth as a tax haven and tourist destination.
The fortified terrace and its stone balustrade, along with the coin-operated viewing telescope, were typical additions to European scenic overlooks in this era, monetising panoramic views for the growing numbers of automobile and coach tourists visiting the Riviera. The Prince's Palace, whose clock tower appears at the frame's edge, has been the residence of the House of Grimaldi since the thirteenth century and remains the seat of Monaco's ruling family.
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Coin-Operated Telescope Overlooking Monte Carlo, Monaco, 1960s. 1960–1969. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-14A8B1. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/coin-operated-telescope-overlooking-monte-carlo-monaco-1960s.
@misc{aaAA202614A8B1,
title = {Coin-Operated Telescope Overlooking Monte Carlo, Monaco, 1960s},
year = {1960–1969},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-14A8B1},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/coin-operated-telescope-overlooking-monte-carlo-monaco-1960s}
}TY - ART TI - Coin-Operated Telescope Overlooking Monte Carlo, Monaco, 1960s PY - 1960–1969 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-14A8B1 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/coin-operated-telescope-overlooking-monte-carlo-monaco-1960s ER -
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