Leah Spigelman

Birth of Modern Europe

Mr. Meyers

PARIS

Pre-History - City Planning

            Although Paris, France has had a rich cultural and political history, city planning had lagged behind its counterparts prior to the 1840s.  Yet, there were some portents of the in-depth city planning to come, even before the arrival of the boulevards of Baron Haussmann.  Paris’ rapid expansion could barely be controlled by even the monarchs.  The city grew dirty, unorganized, and cluttered.  In response to this disorder, France’s monarchs designed open spaces and larger streets to unify and organize the physical city so it would equal its intellectual excellence.

            The city of Paris has traditionally been divided by the banks of the Seine.  The Right Bank is more commercial and administrative and contains the marketplace.  The Left Bank, on the other hand, is the center of intellectualism.  The University of Paris and residential neighborhoods with more unique land ownership patterns, houses, small shops, and churches constitute the Left Bank.

            Monarch Philip Auguste(1180-1223) most significantly altered the structure of Paris by enlarging the market, le marche des Champeaux.  By demolishing Jewish neighborhoods, Philip II built two halles(sheds) to become the first marketplace and built it in a grid formation.  He enlarged the wall around Paris and notably built the first Louvre palace.  Philip also constructed bridges over the Seine and paved Paris’s streets for the first time(although only motivated by the stench of the open sewers).  This medieval city grew, even as larger walls attempted to contain it.  The first such fortification was built by Paris’s inhabitants on the Ile de la Cite in the early 4^th century

            In 1528, Francois I began building the classical Paris loved by Voltaire.  He built the new Louvre in 1546, so that its centrality affected the future of Parisian urbanization and traffic.  In 1548, Henri II attempted to regulate urban growth by banning building outside the city walls.  However, he began to build the Tuileries Palace, against his own proclamation.

            In 1594, Henri IV began the first large-scale renovation of the city, creating a classical city near the disorderly medieval one.  Henri IV built churches, gardens, promenades, convents, bridges, streets, and palaces.  He built up the Pont-Neuf bridge, constructed a pedestrian walk, made three larger streets continue from it on the Left Bank, and determined a singular style of buildings.  Other new bridges, such as the Pont-Royal, encouraged the western trend of growth in Paris that would eventually lead Louis XIV to tear down the city walls.  He created the Place Royale(Place des Vosges), an open square surrounded by residential housing.  On the Ile de la Cite, Henri IV established the Place Dauphine, an isosceles triangle-shaped courtyard, around which lived members of the bourgeoisie.  Another endeavor of Henri IV was his design for the Place de France which was supposed to outline official buildings and lead into streets named for the provinces.

            In 1667, the tree-lined Champs-Elysees took root.  This grand boulevard was the beginning of the urban-planning of Paris so well known today.  Louis XIV who held ideas for even more extravagant boulevards, constructed the cours de Vincennes, a wide road leading from
the Louvre to the Place du Trone, yet stopping before the Bastille.  One of the most significant decrees by the monarchy required all builders to submit their plans to a department.  This would later develop into the workings of Baron Haussmann.

            In the 18^th century, the Odeon theater became one of the most significant public buildings.  As the King moved to Versailles, Paris and its structure became focused on the public.  The Rue de l’Odeon became the first street in Paris to have sidewalks.  And five new access streets to the Odeon helped begin the deliberate organization of Paris’s streets.  New streets and lots were determined by the public in the 1780s.  Paris’s government and citizens began to care for the cleanliness and width of their streets as well as the orderliness and perspective of urban planning.

            Philip’s wall lasted until the French Revolution, when it was torn down in 1785 by Tax Farmers.  The next wall was built by the July Monarchy from 1840-41.  As Paris developed, it grew more aware of its planning.  Accurate maps were made and styles of boulevards and buildings became somewhat consistent.

            Napoleon’s destruction of much of Paris allowed for more open spaces and a new start in urban planning.  In 1793, a Commission of Artists developed to help plan the future of land confiscated in the revolution. 

            Voltaire prayed in 1749,

“may God find some man zealous enough to undertake such projects, possessed of a soul firm enough to complete his undertakings, a mind enlightened enough to plan them, and may he have sufficient social stature to make them succeed.” 

A century later, this man would be Baron Haussmann.