Paris Cityscape Part 2

Today’s cityscape of straight boulevards, integrated by uniform development, which run into squares and monumental buildings, was created by Haussmann under Napoleon III. The most important innovations were the north-south traffic axis from the Gare de l’Est to the Observatoire and the east-west connection from the Place de la Bastille to the Champs-Élysées and the Grands Boulevards. New parks were created around 1860 based on the English model as public recreational areas (Bois de Boulogne, Bois de Vincennes, Parc des Buttes-Chaumont and Parc de Montsouris).

For the big city, whose population grew rapidly as part of the industrial revolution, new building types were created using glass and iron: Gare de l’Est (1847), Gare du Nord (1861–65, J. I. Hittorf), the Halles Centrales (1852 –59, V. Baltard and F.-E. Callet; demolished), Grand Palais and Petit Palais of the 1900 World Exhibition, the natural history museums in the Jardin des Plantes (1833, 1886, 1896). The highlights of engineering construction are the early Pont des Arts (1803) and the Eiffel Tower by A. G. Eiffel, landmarks of the 1889 World’s Fair.

According to topb2bwebsites, the new building materials changed the construction of churches, theaters and libraries at the end of the 19th century; Many examples have been preserved, such as the iron constructions of Saint-Eugène (1854–55), Saint-Augustin (1860–71, V. Baltard), Notre-Dame-de-Travail (1899), which were set in historicizing masonry buildings and only determine the interior architecture and V. a. the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (1843–50, H. Labrouste) and the reading room of the old Bibliothèque Nationale (1854 ff., H. Labrouste). On the other hand, the neo-baroque opera (inaugurated in 1875, C. Garnier) designed. The same applies to the Sacré-Cœur basilica on Montmartre (begun in 1874 by P. Abadie), which follows Romanesque-Byzantine models. Around 1900 the newly built entrances to the metro stations (1899 ff.) In the Art nouveau style based on designs by H. Guimard gave the cityscape a special character (his Castel Béranger, 1894–98, a total work of art in the Art nouveau style).

In the church of Saint-Jean-de-Montmartre (1894) the new reinforced concrete construction was used for the first time and determined the architecture. The concrete skeleton A. Perrets for house number 25 in Rue Franklin (1903-04) represents a further step. This is followed by the buildings by Le Corbusier (Villa Savoye in Poissy, 1929-34; Asylum of the Salvation Army, 1929-33; Swiss House in the Cité Universitaire, 1930–32). Further examples of a progressive civil engineering style are P. L. Nervis Faltwerk for the conference area of ​​UNESCO (1953–58 with M. Breuer and B. Zehrfuss) as well as the shell construction of the exhibition palace CNIT (1956–58) in the office district “La Défense”, spanning an equilateral triangle 238 m long.

With the Center National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, R. Rogers and R. Piano built an »exhibition machine« in 1971-77, the external appearance of which is characterized by the steel structures, escalators, elevators and air conditioning shafts placed in front of the facade. On part of the former market hall area, Claude Vasconi and Georges Pencreac’h built a shopping and cultural center reaching up to 20 m below ground (»Forum des Halles«; partly demolished in 2004; 2014–16 based on plans by Patrick Berger) in 1972-87 i.a. covered with a lamellar glass roof). The “La Défense” office district in the west of the city has been expanded since the 1960s (“Tour First”, 1974, SOM and others).

Crucially influenced by President F. Mitterrand, the “Grands Projets” were created in Paris to mark the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution (1989). The Louvre has been expanded since 1984, the glass pyramid by I. M. Pei was built in the courtyard as a new entrance in 1989, J. Nouvel built the “Institut du Monde Arabe” (from Nouvel also the Fondation Cartier, 1991-94, the Musée du quai Branly, 1999–2006 and the new Philharmonic 2009–14); the Gare d’Orsay train station was converted into the “Musée d’Orsay” in 1980-86 according to plans by Gae Aulenti, and in 1984-89 a 110 m high office tower (“La Grande Arche”) was built in the “La Défense” district according to plans by Otto von Spreckelsen as a counterpart to the Arc de Triomphe. The high-tech park La Villette was built on the former slaughterhouse site in 1982-91, the new Volksoper (Opéra-Bastille) by the Canadian Carlos Ott was inaugurated on the Place de la Bastille with the Colonne de Juillet (1840), and the Ministry of Finance was established in Bercy (1982–90) by Paul Chemetov and Borja Huidobro and the Palais Omnisports (1981–84) by M. Andrault and Pierre Parat. The completion of the “Grands Projets” is the new building of the French National Library (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 1990–95 by D. Perrault). The Mémorial de la Shoah, a memorial, research and documentation center on the history of the Holocaust, was officially inaugurated in the historic Marais district on January 27, 2005 on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp. The architects Antoine Jouve and Simon Vignaud (in collaboration with the scenographers Catherine Bizouard and François Pin) expanded the Jewish documentation center “Mémorial du Martyr Juif Inconnu”, completed in 1956, to a total area of ​​almost 5,000 m 2. In 2014 the Louis Vuitton Museum opened in the Bois de Bologne. That of F. Gehry designed building is spanned by twelve glass sails and contains 3850 m 2 of exhibition space for contemporary art and a concert hall. In 2017, the 160 m high new Palace of Justice (architect Renzo Piano) in the north-west of Paris was completed.

The banks of the Seine with its historical buildings between Pont de Sully and Pont d’Iéna have been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, as have the buildings by Le Corbusier.

Paris Cityscape 2