Haussmann was also blamed for the social disruption caused by his gigantic building projects. On 10 December 1848, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte, won the first direct presidential elections ever held in France with an overwhelming 74.2 percent of the votes cast. Napoleon III had already begun construction of the Bois de Boulogne, and wanted to build more new parks and gardens for the recreation and relaxation of the Parisians, particularly those in the new neighborhoods of the expanding city. "[20] The Boulevard Sébastopol ended at the new Place du Châtelet; a new bridge, the Pont-au-Change, was constructed across the Seine, and crossed the island on a newly built street. http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/exhibitions/2013/marville.html. Cholera epidemics ravaged the city in 1832 and 1848. Thousands of families and businesses had to relocate when their buildings were demolished for the construction of the new boulevards. The place de l'Opéra had been created during the first and second phases; the opera itself was to be built in the third phase. "[6][page needed], The 18th century architectural theorist and historian Quatremere de Quincy had proposed establishing or widening public squares in each of the neighbourhoods, expanding and developing the squares in front the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame and the church of Saint Gervais, and building a wide street to connect the Louvre with the Hôtel de Ville, the new city hall. He built a new street the length of the Île de la Cité and three additional streets across it: rue d'Arcole, rue de la Cité and rue Constantine. In his early 20s, he entered into the realm of public administration, serving as the secretary-general of a prefecture in southwestern France. A channel down the center of the tunnel carried away the waste water, with sidewalks on either side for the égoutiers, or sewer workers. We've all seen pictures of Paris. Some real-estate owners demanded large, straight avenues to help troops manoeuvre. [27] Haussmann was also criticized for the growing cost of his projects; the estimated cost for the 26,290 metres (86,250 ft) of new avenues had been 180 million francs, but grew to 410 million francs; property owners whose buildings had been expropriated won a legal case entitling them to a larger payments, and many property owners found ingenious ways to increase the value of their expropriated properties by inventing non-existent shops and businesses, and charging the city for lost revenue. Lena Weber Community member. The new apartment buildings followed the same general plan: The Haussmann façade was organized around horizontal lines that often continued from one building to the next: balconies and cornices were perfectly aligned without any noticeable alcoves or projections, at the risk of the uniformity of certain quarters. [30] The annexation made it necessary for Haussmann to enlarge his plans, and to construct new boulevards to connect the new arrondissements with the center. The third phase included these projects on the right bank: Haussmann did not have time to finish the third phase, as he soon came under intense attack from the opponents of Napoleon III. "If only the heavens had given me twenty more years of rule and a little leisure," he wrote while in exile on Saint Helena, "one would vainly search today for the old Paris; nothing would remain of it but vestiges. Sewage and disposal at this time were still Medieval in practice. 1877 – completion of the boulevard Saint-Germain, 1877 – completion of the avenue de l'Opéra, 1879 – completion of the boulevard Henri IV, 1889 – completion of the avenue de la République, 1907 – completion of the boulevard Raspail, 1927 – completion of the boulevard Haussmann, The construction of two new railroad stations, the. In 1850 there were only 9000 gaslights in Paris; by 1867, the Paris Opera and four other major theaters alone had fifteen thousand gas lights. Haussmann and Alphand created the Bois de Boulogne (1852–1858) to the west of Paris: the Bois de Vincennes (1860–1865) to the east; the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont (1865–1867) to the north, and Parc Montsouris (1865–1878) to the south. [2] In 1840, a doctor described one building in the Île de la Cité where a single 5-square-meter room (54 sq ft) on the fourth floor was occupied by twenty-three people, both adults and children. Accessed December 12, 2016. http://www.napoleon.org/histoire-des-2-empires/articles/jean-charles-adolphe-alphand-le-jardinier-de-paris/. "[8], The medieval core and plan of Paris changed little during the restoration of the monarchy through the reign of King Louis-Philippe (1830–1848). The Bievre river was used to dump the waste from the tanneries of Paris; it emptied into the Seine. Bars in Paris before and after Covid curfew – in pictures On Saturday, Paris went under a night-time curfew that will last at least a month. Ayers, Andrew. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Maneglier, Hervé, "Paris Impérial", p. 42. This became a model for the building of all of Haussmann's future boulevards. [56], Some of Haussmann's critics said that the real purpose of Haussmann's boulevards was to make it easier for the army to maneuver and suppress armed uprisings; Paris had experienced six such uprisings between 1830 and 1848, all in the narrow, crowded streets in the center and east of Paris and on the left bank around the Pantheon. The reconstruction of the rue de Rivoli was the model for the rest of the Paris boulevards. [4], The center of the city was also a cradle of discontent and revolution; between 1830 and 1848, seven armed uprisings and revolts had broken out in the centre of Paris, particularly along the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, around the Hôtel de Ville, and around Montagne Sainte-Geneviève on the left bank. The residents of these neighborhoods had taken up pavement stones and blocked the narrow streets with barricades, which had to be dislodged by the army.[5]. NPR The photographs, presenting before and after images of Paris, show how Haussmannization "[1] The street plan on the Île de la Cité and in the neighborhood called the "quartier des Arcis", between the Louvre and the "Hôtel de Ville" (City Hall), had changed little since the Middle Ages. For the first time, Paris was the City of Light. In Haussmann's Paris, the streets became much wider, growing from an average of twelve meters (39 ft) wide to twenty-four meters (79 ft), and in the new arrondissements, often to eighteen meters (59 ft) wide. Portions of this article have been translated from its equivalent in the French language Wikipedia. In 1855, work began on the north-south axis, beginning with Boulevard de Strasbourg and Boulevard Sébastopol, which cut through the center of some of the most crowded neighborhoods in Paris, where the cholera epidemic had been the worst, between the rue Saint-Martin and rue Saint-Denis. Since 1801, under Napoleon I, the French government was responsible for the building and maintenance of churches. The Prefecture de Police (shown here), the new Palais de Justice and the Tribunal de Commerce took the place of a dense web of medieval streets on the western part of the Île de la Cité. Disease epidemics (save tuberculosis) ceased, traffic circulation improved and new buildings were better-built and more functional than their predecessors. In 1867, one of the leaders of the parliamentary opposition to Napoleon, Jules Ferry, ridiculed the accounting practices of Haussmann as Les Comptes fantastiques d'Haussmann ("The fantastic (bank) accounts of Haussmann"), a play-on-words based on the "Les Contes d'Hoffman" Offenbach operetta popular at the time.