Baron Haussmann and the redesign of Paris
During the last half of the 1800’s and the early part of the 1900’s urban population in western Europe made enormous increases. During this period France’s overall population living in cities increased twenty percent, and in Germany the increase was almost thirty percent. This great flow of people into cities created many problems in resource demands and patterns of urban life. These demands created a revolution in sanitation and medicine. Part of this revolution was the redesigning of cities. G.E. Baron Von Haussmann was the genius behind the new plans for the city of Paris.
The redesign of Paris was one of the greatest ambitions for Napoleon III. He wanted to create another London, with large parks and open spaces. It also came out of the need for more efficient housing, wider streets to prevent riots and the building of a sewer system to stop the spread of diseases. The master behind Napoleon’s visions was Baron Von Haussmann, prefect of the Seine. He created the Paris we know today with spacious boulevards and beautiful sights.
The redevelopment by Napoleon III and Haussmann consisted of three major parts: streets and buildings, parks, and services. The first major problem with the city before reconstruction was that the streets were very narrow and wound endlessly around the city. These narrow streets had been a problem in that for many years they had been the battlegrounds for strikes against the French government. Haussmann and Napoleon sought to change this by widening the streets and give more structure to their flow. Haussmann saw streets as having two main purposes. The first was for a place to simply live, shop, and a place to socialize for the growing middle class. The second was a way to connect main points of the city. The streets provided rapid access from the railway stations, government buildings, central markets, hospitals and entertainment districts. It also linked the central organs of administration and businesses such as fire department riot police, ambulances, and department store deliveries. This reconstruction of streets could not be done without great demolition of many private buildings.
Many people today don’t stop to think about some of the basic city infrastructure we have in place today and where it originated. In more developed regions of the world, people are accustomed to running water, sewage systems, trash sites and other basic necessities required for comfortable, disease free living. In the late fourteenth century Milan was ravaged by the plague and almost one third of the city’s population was killed. During this time most of what’s considered a basic necessity for a well-built, disease free city was unheard of. Leonardo believed that the spread of the plague was due to the cramped design of the city. He began to design a city to prevent the future spread of such diseases.
Napoleon was a military general that participated in multiple war victories. His interests included history, law, and mathematics. His strengths as a leader benefitted in planning financial, legal, and military plans. His aspiring attitude made him believe he was destined to be the savior of France (Coffin & Stacey, 494). He favored a republic over a constitutional monarchy. When Napoleon came to power, he immediately consolidated personal power by overthrowing the five-man Directory and created a Republic. Napoleon used his status and power during the Revolution to bring out and surface Revolution ideals and help his people. Napoleon’s role in European history was the savior of the French Revolution due to the fact he accomplished most objectives that the people hoped for. Goals of the French Revolution included overthrowing the old regime of an absolute monarch, write a basic and worthy constitution, and give more rights to the third estate and limit the first and second estates power in the Estates-General.
... the government realized they needed to do something about cleaning the cities up because it was obviously making people ill. Sewage systems were put in, along with roads coming in and out of the big cities.
The lure of the city had one drawback, it attracted so many people that soon the cities became vastly overcrow...
The phrase Paris capital of modernity refers to the time in the second half of the nineteenth century when Paris was considered one of the most innovative cities in the world. This was largely a result of Haussmann’s renovation of the city between 1851 and 1869. A Prefect of Paris under Napoleon III, he transformed Paris into a city with wide streets, new shops and cafes, and a unified architecture.
Architects such as Louis Sullivan brought new principles of building: the skyscrapers, and allowed more space available on less land. Industrial jobs brought more rural people into factory thus increased population. Electricity, telephones, indoor plumbing and new inventions made life easier in the big cities. Walking city made it easier to for people to walk around.
In order to get into the minds of the working class it is important to fully understand the present living conditions at this time. The cities were vastly overcrowded and smoky, with wholly inadequate sanitation, per...
City life changed in many ways in the 1800s. One thing that happened was the increase in quality of life and medicine. "The rapid growth was not due to larger families"; it was "because the death rate fell." (249). Because the germ theory was finally recognized as legitimate, better hygiene was pushed in all places. Not only was there better hygiene in the home where people bathed and changed more often, but in the hospital as well, where finding clean tools would be a rare sight. Another effect of the germ theory being accepted was that scientists were then able to find cures for common diseases with the missing link between actions and diseases found. Another thing that changed in the 1800s was landscape of the cities themselves. Reportedly,
One of Napoleon’s first areas of concern was in the strengthening of the French government. He created a strong centralized government and pretty much got rid of the hundreds of localized law codes that had existed during under the control of the monarchy. He also created an army of government officials. He had the entire country linked under a rational administration. He also was able to get an easy supply of taxes and soldiers under his new and improved French government. Before he could get very far, however, he had to gain public favor and shape the public opinion. To do this he used reforms of propaganda and thus caused people to think that they were getting the better end of the deal, but were actually, subconsciously giving Napoleon their approval for his actions. Among some of the methods he used for propaganda included getting all of the printers and book sellers to swear an oath to Napoleon and all newspapers fell under state control, so Napoleon gained access to almost everything that the citizens of France were able to read. Many of the gains from the French Revolution were kept, such as equality before the law, and careers open to talent. Some anti-revolution actions that Napoleon took included repressing liberty, restoring absolutism, and ending political liberty. He believed that allowing political freedom would end with a state of anarchy. He believed that he could solve these problems by acting in favor of the people’s interests as an enlightened desp...
In contrast, the architecture at the time represented wealth and stability, traditional enduring values. During this time, there was a lot of social change that came from science and philosophy. The kick from the Industrial Revolution accelerated the trend, even though ideas from the Gothic Style started it. Steam-powered sawmills could now create elaborate materials, cheaper and faster. As a result, houses became increasingly ornate. Lower income families could finally afford tr...
With all the glory and the splendour that some countries may have experienced, never has history seen how only only one man, Napoleon, brought up his country, France, from its most tormented status, to the very pinnacle of its height in just a few years time. He was a military hero who won splendid land-based battles, which allowed him to dominate most of the European continent. He was a man with ambition, great self-control and calculation, a great strategist, a genius; whatever it was, he was simply the best. But, even though how great this person was, something about how he governed France still floats among people's minds. Did he abuse his power? Did Napoleon defeat the purpose of the ideals of the French Revolution? After all of his success in his military campaigns, did he gratify the people's needs regarding their ideals on the French Revolution? This is one of the many controversies that we have to deal with when studying Napoleon and the French Revolution. In this essay, I will discuss my opinion on whether or not was he a destroyer of the ideals of the French Revolution.
Wolf, Peter M. Eugene Hénard and the beginning of urbanism in Paris 1900-1914. New York: P.M.W., 1968. 29-33.
From the years 1356-1358, Paris now extended further, past the original defensive wall built around the 12th century. In addition, a new wall was built to act as a defensive barrier, for any future wars, in particular any war against England. On the other hand, the Louvre’s purpose to act as a defensive site, no longer
As we can see in Fig.1 (sa.dk, 2014) & Fig.2 (Oldmapsofparis.com, 2014), compared to the development which occurred over in Paris, Copenhagen’s expansion and growth was at a slower pace. This could be due to specific events which happened during this era in history. At the end of the 1700s and leading up to the 1800s Copenhagen experienced devastating fires caused a lot ...
These industrial cities created problems in three areas: working conditions, living conditions, and the social structure. First, cities built so rapidly were also built shoddily. Tenement houses were crammed together poorly built, and overcrowded. Whole families were packed into cellars, attics, or single rooms, with one house full of people. Good sanitation was non-existent, making clean water an available for the wealthy. Open sewers ran down streets carrying water with industrial (sewage) and human waste. Diseases such as cholera, typhus, and often reached large amount of individuals. Add to these problems malnutrition the air pollution, and one gets a picture of incomparable human misery. Drug abuse, alcoholism, and prostitution were natural outcomes of having to endure to these conditions.