Paris before Haussmann
During a time of industrial change and cultural advancement, Paris became the new home for many, overcrowding the ancient districts and spreading disease. The city, which had been untouched since the middle Ages, was in dire need of reflecting the new modern ways and putting an end to the spreading medical epidemics. The tight confines of Medieval Paris were hindering the city’s potential for growth and desire to transform into a well-organized urban center. Napoleon III set about bringing order and structure to the chaotic, cramped city and putting an end to its' identity crisis. Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann, chosen by Napoleon III to lead the project, created new roads, public parks, public monuments, as well as installing new sewers and changing the architectural façade of the city. With the aid of the public, Modernist Napoleon III set out to undertake one of the largest urban transformations since the burning of London in 1666.
Louis Napoleon III, who became emperor in 1852, had a great deal of
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They were not simply the tools employed to achieve pragmatic aims since they also reflect a specific aesthetic program.
Haussmann thought that the boulevards would solve the strident aesthetic contradiction that had vexed Voltaire more than a century earlier: the entrapment of the grand monuments of the glorious national past into a chaotic and squalid mesh of medieval alleys. Therefore, Haussmann devised a network of roads that, while strategically linking recent and ancient monuments, would also visually rescue them from the quagmire of the old city. The axial perspective of the grand boulevards was to articulate the new vistas of the modern metropolis.
Haussmann embarked on a radical project of urban design to rebuild Paris as a modern city. The project