Medieval Paris Before Baron Haussmann's Transformation

[Clay Hefner]

Originally Posted by Phobos

It's almost impossible to think about Paris without Hausmann's transformation.
We know that a lot of medieval buildings were lost,but if we wanna have a feeling of a medieval city we can always visit Ghent,Brugge,Chester,Venice and so many others.
Paris is the best example of the XIX century urbanism,and whether people like Haussmann's work or not,we can't deny the grandeur of the city he built.

If that is meant to be a big "heads up we can't change it now anyways", more power to you.
But it's so sad this was all lost.Without a war or natural disaster or even fire.

Imagine this unique, gigantic maze of old wooden houses was still there. With little secrets and details in every nook.
All those real big half-timbered old towns are gone now. That's why it's such a big loss and Venice, as awesome as it is, can't ever hope to compensate. Also, as said, they could at least have preserved a chunk of the innermost city and still have big boulevards around it.
But they couldn't have that because part of the plan was to make the city revolution-proof.

So how big was that old town? Looks like 2x old Frankfurt, but it's hard
to tell from the old map.

[charpentier]

"A bird’s eye view of Paris would have been interesting in the Middle Ages, but now! [...] And then the edifices emerging from this jumble of roofs, Notre Dame, the Sainte Chapelle, Saint Severin, Saint Etienne du Mont, the Tour Saint Jacques, are put out of countenance by the deplorable mass of newer edifices. And I am not at all eager to contemplate that specimen of the art of the maker of toilet articles which the Opera is, nor that bridge arch, the Arc de Triomphe, nor that hollow chandelier, the Tour Eiffel!"

Joris-Karl Huysmans, Là-Bas, 1891

[wolfpaw]

Originally Posted by Clay Hefner

All those real big half-timbered old towns are gone now

Yes, I agree. It's what makes the loss of the great German centres of half-timbered housing such a tragedy. In the UK we had demolished most of ours by 1939 anyway. Rouen was a great half-timbered city before WW2 too and much of it burnt after Allied bombing.

[M@rtoc]

Originally Posted by Phobos

Could you give us a link to that thread?

Sure. It's in French.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=927486

[z0nnebril]

While I was looking on Google Maps, I found this --> http://maps.google.nl/maps?f=q&sourc...0.69,,0,-15.85

It's different than all the other buildings in Paris!

[Herbie Fully Loaded]

I found that XV century house in google images after searching for medieval Parisian buildings. It reminded me to the Disney conception of the city in the movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

[socrates#1fan]

Beautiful McDonalds.

[The Cake On BBQ]

I think I belong to minority that thinks Haussmann was a vandal.

[J-Ph]

Interesting thread (I hadn't seen it until today).

What Haussmann did is certainly vandalism by our standards, and sometimes was an urbanistic disaster (la Cité). But a common mistake is to believe that he found a virtually unchanged medieval Paris. As a very active and growing city between the XVIth and the XIXth century, Paris continually changed (unlike Rouen for example, which was the second city of France at the end of the Middle Age, then suffered a relative decline, and subsequently preserved more of its medieval look until the XIXth century).

In the center of Paris, what was left from the middle age was the street plan (like M@rtoc said) and the shape of the parcels (wich by itself are of historical value imo). Many churches had already been destroyed over the centuries, especially after the French Revolution ; nearly all mansions had been replaced by "modern looking" ones during the earlier centuries or simply disappeared (only 2 or 3 are left, whose pictures are displayed above) ; most ordinary houses had already been rebuilt or had their height raised, or at the very least had their facades covered with plaster and mouldings. And I don’t even mention the walls.

Interestingly, in a chapter of "Notre Dame de Paris", Victor Hugo describes how wonderful Paris may have looked at the end the XVth century, and says how ugly and dull the city now is... and he wrote that text a few decades before Haussmann.

But even if Paris didn't look at all in 1850 like it looked in 1500, countless traces and relics of the past disappeared because of the work of Haussmann, and the feeling of the city drastically changed.

You can easily find books with pictures and maps of the disappeared streets, for example:
http://www.amazon.com/Walks-Through-...3868596&sr=8-1

It's not that difficult to imagine what the old (Pre-haussmann) Paris looked like, there are many pictures, detailed maps... and many old streets remained untouched. If you walk around Saint Severin on the left bank, or along streets around les Halles, you have a good idea of what the Cité, or the district around the Chatelet looked like (except the streets in theses districts were even narrower, and more twisting).

[J-Ph]

Originally Posted by Hed_Kandi

These buildings (same houses as in your 3 first pictures), are an example of houses which were covered with plaster, probably during the XVIIth or XVIIIth century, and then restored to have a "medieval look" during the XXth century. Many buildings in what remains of the old streets of Paris are actually wooden houses, but you can't see it.
But I'm not sure theses houses are really medieval, or at least they were heavilly transformed. As far as I remember, the house on the left had no gable until it was restored (in the 50s, 60s ?).
"Real" medieval houses in Paris were probably much more beautiful, with projecting stories and sculptures, which can't be seen here.

[J-Ph]

Originally Posted by wolfpaw

A few of Charles Marville's photos here {blog is in French}

http://saintsulpice.unblog.fr/2009/0...quaires-paris/

This area was untouched by Haussmann. The building with the turret still exists today... but it looks a little "fake". Why ? A bomb feel on it during WWII, and it was then heavilly restored (or even rebuilt).
http://www.insecula.com/oeuvre/O0012644.html

This is the old "île de la cité". This street is now replaced by the big "hôtel dieu" (hospital) :
http://www.cosmovisions.com/monuParisRueArcole.htm

[D K]

Very interesting thread!

[J-Ph]

Originally Posted by wolfpaw

Yes, I agree. It's what makes the loss of the great German centres of half-timbered housing such a tragedy. In the UK we had demolished most of ours by 1939 anyway. Rouen was a great half-timbered city before WW2 too and much of it burnt after Allied bombing.

Maybe it's only a detail : allied bombing destroyed or damaged many prestigious buildings or old districts in Rouen. But what was probably the most fascinating area, located between the Cathedral and the Seine River, burnt earlier, in June 1940, when the Germans conquered the city.
Anyway, if it hadn't been destroyed in 1940, it would probably have disappeared in 1944.

Rouen certainly still has many old streets and houses, but what a loss if we compare to what it looked like in the early XIXth century !

[brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Clay Hefner

So how big was that old town? Looks like 2x old Frankfurt, but it's hard

The City of Paris, within its 3rd Medieval wall built in the 1360s-1370s, encompassed 4.39 km². On top of that, there were urbanized areas outside the city walls which were called "faubourgs" in French (which literally means "false boroughs"). There was the Faubourg Saint-Germain des Prés (about 0.35 km² of built-up area), the Faubourg Saint-Jacques (about 0.15 km² of built-up area), the Faubourgs Saint-Médard & Saint-Marcel (about 0.7 km² of built-up area), and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine (about 0.15 km² of built-up area).

So in total, the built-up area for the city and its faubourgs was about 5.75 km². It was the largest city in the western world both in terms of land area and population (Paris reached 200,000 inhabitants in 1300, its peak population during the Middle Ages; the population remained stable in the 14th century, then declined a bit in the 15th century due to the civil war between Armagnacs and Bourguignons, then increased again in the 16th century, reaching for the first time 400,000 people around 1630, at which time the urbanized area already extended beyond its Medieval 5.75 km²). Other European Medieval cities had smaller territoires, but I don't have figures. I know the City of London, within its Medieval wall, encompassed only 1.5 km². There were, however, larger cities than Paris in Asia.

[socrates#1fan]

Medieval Paris is a little later in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEOFQAJAcss

[Clay Hefner]

Thanks for the infos brisavoine!

The Frankfurt Altstadt is less than 0.5 km². And that was a pretty large old town it would have taken days and weeks to explore in detail.
That means Paris old town (walled area alone) was about or over NINE times as large. Wow.
To think some guys just decided to tear all of that down

[brisavoine]

Originally Posted by M@rtoc

There's a thread in the French subforum where we talk about the possibility to replace haussmannian buildings. Result : dozens and dozens of pages.

Originally Posted by Phobos

Could you give us a link to that thread?

Here is the link: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=927486

There is also this thread: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=984232

I'm the forumer who opened this debate about destroying Haussmannian buildings to regenerate the city center of Paris. In some areas (such as around the St Lazare train station, in the heart of the Paris central business district), I proposed to replace some Haussmannian buildings with skyscrapers. On the Île de la Cité, the island which was the historical heart of Paris, I proposed to destroy the Haussmannian buildings and recreate the Medieval street grid which Haussmann destroyed in the 1860s.

This is how the Medieval street grid on the Île de la Cité looked like before Haussmann:


Haussmann destroyed all the light blue and dark blue areas (the dark blue rectangles show big administrative buildings built by Haussmann, the red lines show the avenues carved by Haussmann through the Île de la Cité):


I proposed to destroy the big ugly administrative buildings built by Haussmann and to recreate the Medieval street grid within the area delineated by the red line (map below). I also proposed to built two pedestrian bridges (in green on the map below) across the Seine River to link this rebuilt Medieval district to the Left and Righ banks. In this rebuilt Medieval district, only the street grid would be Medieval, but the buildings themselves wouldn't be copies of Medieval buildings, which would look tacky and fake. The buildings would be smart buildings, not looking too modern, but not looking fake Medieval either (a good example of this are the buildings rebuilt around Paternoster Square in London, near St Paul's Cathedral). This rebuilt Medieval district should become the central party district of Paris, bringing back life to the dead Île de la Cité. I thought for example the buildings along the rebuilt Medieval streets could be used as dorms for university students (in Paris there is a lack of dorms for students, so it would fill a gap), and the ground floors of the buildings would host bars, restaurants, little boutiques, etc.



I was planning to post a more detailed map of my project for the Île de la Cité, showing the reconstructed Medieval street grid in detail, but I didn't do it because I'm boycotting the Francophone forum due to the overbearing attitude of the mods there, so I can't show you the more detailed map.

Anyway, here are some of the buildings built around Paternoster Square in London, to give an idea of what I meant.

[img]http://*************************/london/jpgs/london_building_aw050507_121.jpg[/img]

[img]http://*************************/london/jpgs/london_building_aw230607_3111.jpg[/img]



[img]http://*************************/london/jpgs/london_building_aw050507_117.jpg[/img]

[img]http://*************************/london/jpgs/london_building_aw050507_084.jpg[/img]

[img]http://*************************/london/jpgs/london_building_aw230607_3110.jpg[/img]

And this is how Notre Dame Square and the south side of the cathedral looked like around 1750 (the Episcopat was the seat of the Archbishopric of Paris; the long Medieval aisle to the left of the Episcopat was the central hospital of Paris, the so-called Hôtel Dieu, built by King Saint Louis in the 13th century):
[img]http://i43.************/2kfsds.jpg[/img]

And this is how this area looks today, after the fire of 1772 which destroyed the Medieval aisle of the Hôtel Dieu, and later Haussmann who destroyed the Episcopat and all the buildings still remaining around the Medieval Hôtel Dieu. The square in front of Notre Dame is now more than 4 times larger than during the Middle Ages, which the Medieval builders of Notre Dame would have found monstruous, seeing their cathedral standing in the middle of a huge empty space:
[img]http://i40.************/2uo2bnm.jpg[/img]

[brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Clay Hefner

That means Paris old town (walled area alone) was about or over NINE times as large. Wow.
To think some guys just decided to tear all of that down

Don't worry, more than 50% of the Medieval city of Paris has survived. You just have to search for it. It's not one big area, it's just many small areas, many small Medieval islands separated by Haussmannian streets and avenues. You need to take all sorts of side streets to find the Medieval Paris that has survived. But it's there, more than 50% of it is still there, hidden behind the Haussmannian avenues.

One thing you need to know, however, is the Medieval heart of Paris stopped looking Medieval in the 16th century. With the huge growth of Paris, the population of the city going from 200,000 inhabitants in 1500 to 400,000 inhabitants in 1630, pretty much all the Medieval houses were destroyed and replaced by taller and cheaper-looking apartment buildings which could accomodate more people. So even before Haussmann, the Medieval heart of Paris didn't look like Medieval German cities with their cute timber frame houses.

On Google street view, you can have a look at many Medieval streets of Paris that survived Haussmannization. None of these streets will look "Medieval" to you, because as I explained the old Medieval houses were destroyed in the 16th and 17th centuries to make way for taller and plainer buildings whose façades were plastered with white Paris plaster to prevent fire (so no fancy timber frames alas), but nonetheless all these streets are pretty much the same as they were in the 18th century before Haussmann.

Here is a short list of some of them (in total there must be more than 200 remaining Medieval streets in Paris, so my list here is only a super short list, so you can have a look on Google street view):
- rue Sauval
- rue Lanneau
- rue de Montmorency (contains the oldest surviving house in Paris, from the 15th century)
- rue des Grand-Augustins
- rue de la Huchette
- rue des Ursins
- rue de Quincampoix
- rue Bailleul
- and many, many more

Here below you have a typical Medieval street of Paris (this one is rue des Grands-Augustins). All the buildings in this street were built before 1800. The buildings to the left are from the 17th century, and you can tell they housed rich people, because they are entirely made of stone and with fancy balconies. The buildings to the right of the street are probably from the 18th century, and you can tell they housed working class people because they use cheap Paris plaster, and the balconies are plain and simple. Before 1600, probably this street looked like Medieval streets in fairy tales, with beautiful timber frame Medieval houses, but all the timber frame Medieval houses in this street were probably demolished after 1600 and replaced by the taller buildings you can see today in order to make way for a rapidly growing population following the end of the French Wars of Religion.

[img]http://i43.************/5b7i3p.jpg[/img]

[brisavoine]

Originally Posted by J-Ph

Rouen certainly still has many old streets and houses, but what a loss if we compare to what it looked like in the early XIXth century !

Fortunately Normandy still possess some smaller towns which have survived the war unscathed, with their half-timbered houses.



But yeah, by and large, the Germans massacred Upper Normandy in 1940, and the Allies massacred Lower Normandy in 1944. This can never be forgotten.

[heywindup]

Originally Posted by brisavoine

FBut yeah, by and large, the Germans massacred Upper Normandy in 1940, and the Allies massacred Lower Normandy in 1944. This can never be forgotten.

Well, look at the bright side, at least Paris was relatively spared from bombs compared to London, and *gasp*, Rotterdam or Warsaw.

Great posts by the way.