Transforming Paris: The Life and Labors of Baron Haussmann
Prefect of the Seine under Emperor Louis Napoleon, overbearing, enormously energetic, authoritarian urban planner Georges-Eugene Haussmann (1809-91) left an indelible imprint on Paris. Razing much of the congested, decaying old city, in demolitions that left tens of thousands homeless, he built broad boulevards, parks, squares and bridges, created neighborhoods and imposed a harmonious, rational design on the imperial capital. To Jordan (The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre), Haussmann was a new breed of bureaucrat, a technocrat, who for all his aloofness and administrative rigidity expressed the ideals of his age-rational order, incessant movement, progress, an urban life lived in public-in the modernized City of Light. Professor of history at the University of Illinois, Jordan surmises that Haussmann's frail, sickly childhood influenced his adult obsession with cleanliness, manifested in the Paris sewer system he built. This is a wonderfully evocative biography, rich in architectural and political history. Illustrations.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.