The mid nineteenth Century in Europe was a very dynamic and
innovative time during which many technological advances were being made thanks
to the Industrial Revolution. Cast-iron, as a building material, had made its
very successful debut and was being used extensively throughout Europe and
North America, an example of this is French architect Victor Baltard’s, Les Halles market place in Paris (Van
Zanten, D. 1994. Pp. 203). The
locomotive had been invented and was greatly reshaping not only our methods of
transport, but also our urban and rural city planning and zoning. Unfortunately, however, with all this
innovation generated largely by coal consumption; sanitation, living conditions
and public health were greatly impacted on – a large majority of Europe’s urban
fabric had become unhealthy, overcrowded, dirty and grimy (Engels, F. 1971. Pp.
753). These wide spread problems eventually led to large-scale urban renewal
projects commissioned by Europe’s (then) monarchs, which saw many of the
continent’s large centres, such as Paris and Vienna, completely transformed
with new boulevards, sanitary public infrastructure, increased ventilation and
permeability (Van Zanten, D. 1994. Pp. 198-199). This paper will seek to investigate the contributions made in
the field of urban design and architecture by Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann
and Austrian architect Camillo Sitte through their work and publications on
urban renewal and the city form.
In 1853, Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann was instated by
Emperor Louis Napoleon Bonaparte III of France as the Prefect of the Seine; a
position which was responsible for the governance, design and urban renewal of
Greater Paris and its Arrondissements
(administrative districts) (Van Zanten, D. 1994. Pp. 198). Haussmann’s task was one of extremely
high public importance. He was going to be placed in charge of an extensive
urban renewal project which would involve three large-scale phases of urban
redevelopment centred largely around the construction and extension of many of
Paris’ (now famous and highly regarded) boulevards and public spaces (Van
Zanten, D. 1994. Pp. 199). Napoleon III was well aware of the Cholera epidemic
which plagued the city’s water supplies in the 1830s and led to the death of
thousands of the city’s inhabitants in a very short period of time. Thus, generally
poor public sanitation, overcrowding, dirty and grimy living conditions, high
death rates, high traffic congestion and the uncontrollable spread of Cholera became
pivotal determinants for Napoleon III’s decision to transform medieval Paris into
a newer and cleaner city through the rebuilding of the city’s sewerage and
water systems (Van Zanten, D. 1994. Pp. 204). He was going to establish healthy
living conditions once again, construct and extend numerous boulevards, public
spaces and squares, double the city’s size, clear out the impoverished slums, erect
vast amounts of new buildings and give the urban space ventilation and
sanitation (Van Zanten, D. 1994. Pp. 213). After all, Paris was Napoleon III’s,
and it was supposed to be glorious – especially after the French victory in
Crimea.
Haussmann’s large-scale urban renewal of Paris occurred in three distinct phases:
·
Phase One;
which concerned the planning out and extension of wide-set north-south and
east-west thoroughfare boulevards increasing permeability and ventilation in
the city - the extension of Rue de Rivoli,
Boulevard Saint-Germain (East-west), and
the Boulevard de Strasbourg, Boulevard de Sebastapol and Boulevard Saint-Denis (North-south) (Van
Zanten, D. 1994. Pp. 200).
·
Phase Two;
which concerned the construction of many more thoroughfares and boulevards,
saw the establishment of new civil infrastructure, sewers and water systems, and
the laying out of new Parisian arrondissements
(local municipalities) and their associated municipal buildings in the city’s
fringes (Van Zanten, D. 1994. Pp. 204).
·
And, Phase
Three; the expansion of the city limits to the fortifications and further
establishment of Parisian arrondissements
from eleven to twenty, which effectively doubled Paris in size. Thoroughfare
boulevards and public spaces were finalised, interconnected and inaugurated (See
figure 1.1). Across all three
phases, hundreds of million of francs were spent on this astronomical
redevelopment of Paris, much of which contributed to the government’s financial
problems (Van Zanten, D. 1994. Pp. 213).
Figure 1.1: Haussmann’s
Recreation of Boulevard Henri IV [Image]. (2015).
Haussmann and Napoleon III’s vision for creating a grand
boulevard-orientated streetscape with a uniform
Parisian architectural style quite possibly contributes to our modern-day
romantic image Paris; almost all of Haussmann’s new boulevards were lined
elegantly with trees (except the Avenue
de l’Opera which remained treeless in order to preserve a grand view of the
Palais Garnier Opera house).
In stark contrast to Haussmann’s calculated, ordered and
structured urban philosophy imposed on Paris during the mid nineteenth Century,
Austrian architect Camillo Sitte was well-known for his admiration of the organic and unstructured nature of medieval European towns; he viewed the
planning and construction process of cities as a form of art (Collins, G.,
& Collins, C. 1965. Pp. 14). According to Purdom’s publication ‘The Building of Satellite Towns’ in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
(Purdom, C. 1925.), Sitte’s philosophy surrounding urban design was centred
largely around the following principles (Purdom, C. 1925. Pp. 102);
·
Direct Informality
and irregularity
·
Grouping of buildings in accordance with the informality
·
And, recognising parts of towns as ‘units’
Although Sitte did not necessarily have unrestricted access
to large-scale urban redevelopment projects, like Haussmann, he was however
involved in the development of some Austrian industrial cities and was also
highly academic and did publish vast amounts of scholarly content on the
subject of urban design and the arts’ critical and inseparable role in it. According
to Collins’ publication Sitte and the
Birth of Modern City Planning, Camillo Sitte was somewhat frustrated by the
formal restructuring and redesigning of medieval towns, as he believed the new
urban form would often lose its organic
and artistic quality, and would therefore
become very difficult to understand (Collins, G., & Collins, C. 1965. Pp.
15). This frustration is well documented in Sitte’s condemnation of the
proposed (and subsequently built) Vienna Ringstrasse in Vienna, Austria. It is
understood that the construction of this boulevard-like street required the
removal of Vienna’s old medieval city wall – therefore it is understandable
that Sitte was directly opposed given his love for Germanic, teutonic, and unstructured
medieval architecture (Collins, G.,
& Collins, C. 1965. Pp. 15).
In the contemporary era, we may suggest that there are many
examples of Haussmannisation
occurring in urban environments throughout the world. Many arterial boulevards
created within modern-day cities mimic George-Eugene Haussmann’s heavily
boulevard-orientated redevelopment of Paris. Just to name some examples of
Haussmannisation and Sitte-inspired design (Nichols, D. 2015.);
Haussmannisation:
·
The Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
·
Royal Parade, Melbourne, Victoria.
·
L’enfant’s design for Washington, DC. (Nichols,
D. 2015).
·
Raymond Unwin’s design of New Earswick, UK.
·
Free Church, Hampstead Garden, UK.
·
The Forest Hills Garden, Brooklyn, NY. (Nichols,
D. 2015.)
The extensive redevelopment of Europe’s capital cities from
enclosed and walled-in organic (and
somewhat dirty) medieval towns to much larger and cleaner boulevard-orientated
cities in the mid nineteenth Century was a pivotal time in Europe’s history. It
was a time when large-scale advances occurred in public and civil
infrastructure, public health and sanitation, city permeability and ventilation,
and congestion management. One may conclude that this era revolutionised the
way we, as urban planners, think about our urban fabric and the methods in
which we seek to revitalise, improve and breathe new energy and life into our
public spaces.
Barnett, J. (1986). The Elusive City. New York: Harper & Row. Pp. 24-25.
Collins, G., & Collins, C. (1965).
Camilo Sitte’s Background, Life and Interests in Collins and Collins Camilo Sitte and the Birth of Modern City
Planning. New York: Random House Publishing. Pp. 5-15.
Engels, F. (1971). The Condition of the Working Class in England. Oxford, United
Kingdom: Oxford. In Benevolo, L. History
of the City. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: MIT Press. Pp. 753.
Haussmann’s
Recreation of Boulevard Henri IV [Image]. (2015). Image retrieved from: http://www.iub.edu/~paris10/ParisOSS/D3Haussmann/d3index.html
Mumford, L. (1991). The City in History. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Pp. 522.
Nichols, D. (2015). Urban History Lecture Ten: Sitte, Haussmann and Streetscapes [Power Point slides] Retrieved from: https://app.lms.unimelb.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-4767886-dt-content-rid-16734818_2/courses/ABPL20034_2015_SM1/urban%20history%202015%20sitte%20haussmann.ppt.pdf
Purdom, C. (1925). The Building of
Satellite Towns. Journal of the Royal
Statistical Society 88(4). Pp. 102.
Van Zanten, D. (1994). ‘Haussmann, Baltard
and Municipal Architecture’. in Building
Paris: Architectural Institutions and the Transformation of the French Capital,
1830-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 198-213.
No comments:
Post a Comment