Hardly any other river is as fascinating as the Seine in Paris. On its banks between Pont de Sully and Pont d’Iéna, the architectural masterpieces of the cosmopolitan city line up like a string of pearls. These include the Gothic Notre-Dame Cathedral, the filigree Saint Chapelle, the Conciergerie, the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Grand and Petit Palais, the National Assembly and the Eiffel Tower.
Seine river in Paris: facts
| Official title: | The banks of the Seine in Paris between Pont de Sully and Pont d’Iéna |
| Cultural monument: | on the banks of the Seine, between Pont de Sully and Pont d’Iéna, buildings worthy of art history such as the Eiffel Tower, a 7500 t heavy metal structure made of 15,000 individual parts, the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais as well as the Palais Bourbon, the five-aisled Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Musée de Louvre with more than 400,000 exhibits, the Musée d’Orsay, the Pont Neuf, the Place de la Concorde with the Luxor Obelisk, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and the Jardin des Tuileries |
| Continent: | Europe |
| Country: | France |
| Location: | Paris |
| Appointment: | 1991 |
| Meaning: | the former cultural center of Louis XIV, based on the Haussmann plan, an example of modern urban redevelopment |
Seine River in Paris: History
| 52 BC Chr. | roman settlement Lutetia |
| 1163-1350 | Construction of the Notre-Dame Cathedral |
| 1180-1210 | Construction of a city wall |
| 1430 | Coronation of Henry VI. of England to the French king in Notre-Dame |
| 1607 | Inauguration of the Pont Neuf |
| 1793 | Conversion of the former residence Palais Royal de Louvre into a museum |
| 1804 | Self-coronation of Emperor Napoleon I. |
| 1809-91 | Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann, under Napoleon III. Prefect of the Seine department and “genius of urban redevelopment” |
| 1831 | Publication of the “Hunchback of Notre-Dame” by Victor Hugo |
| 1864 | Re-consecration after restoration of Notre-Dame |
| 1887-89 | Construction of the Eiffel Tower |
| 1993 | Opening of the Richelieu wing of the Louvre |
Museums and monuments as an occidental legacy
“Paris is not a city, but a world; at least nowhere else does one have so much of the world together as here; it is just enough to despair a person who wants to grasp everything and use it for its benefit. «After three months in Paris in 1843, Friedrich Hebbel summed up his mixed feelings with these words that sounded partly enthusiastic and partly depressed. A good century and a half later, his feelings and statements still apply without further ado. The heart of Paris turns out not only to be a museum legacy of Western culture, but rather the palaces and churches on the Seine with their attractive facades also form the background for a lively everyday life, in which the numerous tourists mostly act like curious extras.
The Parisian present can nowhere ignore the historical: The river islands of Saint-Louis and Île de la Cité – as the prehistoric nucleus of the metropolis – have been settled for over two millennia and are now more en vogue than ever. Where the early Celts originally laid out their primitive dwellings in the shelter of the river arms, land prices and rents have long been top class worldwide. According to ezinereligion, on the forecourt of Notre-Dame-de-Paris, the “mother church of France”, one finds the still unchangeable intersection and orientation point of the national road network cemented. Only a few stones throws away, the medieval towers and chambers of the Conciergerie conceal the darkest chapter of the man-eating »Grande Révolution«.
From the Pont de Sully to the Pont d’Iéna, 23 bridges span the Seine. Down the river from the Île de la Cité, they connect the banks on both sides, densely occupied by noble historical monuments. The exhibition halls and magazines of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay protect an immeasurably rich treasure trove of original works from all high cultures and the most important stylistic epochs of the world’s art. “Who can give an account of everything that one sees!” Exclaimed Hebbel in the Louvre, “there I wandered around among the remains of the most ancient past, which miraculously at the same time of a lost millennium and of the most outstanding appearance of the present, of Napoleon brought them over to Europe on his triumphant chariot. “In fact, the core city owes its present-day appearance to a large extent to the far-reaching“ urban redevelopment ”under Napoleon and his successors. Not only the “Great Historic Axis” – from the Louvre through the Tuileries Gardens, via the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Élysées up to Napoleon’s triumphal arch – but also the layout of the avenues and great boulevards were changed and overlaid by Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann old Paris. Later the world exhibitions of 1878, 1889 and 1900 also helped the bridges and quays of the Seine to become further architectural highlights. The ensemble of Grand Palais and Petit Palais built at the time and the Palais de Chaillot, which was only redesigned for the fourth World Exhibition in 1937, complement and combine with the Eiffel Tower to form an urban total work of art.
With the Grande Arche in the futuristic district of La Défense, the most recent urban redevelopments aim far out of the city center. Because the heart of the metropolis, as a perfectly arranged monument protection zone, can “only” tolerate such capricious aperçus as the glass pyramid in the Cour Napoléon above the main entrance of the Louvre in 1989.
