page_title: Haussmann's renovation of Paris
section_title: The Haussmann building
hierarchical_section_title: Haussmann's renovation of Paris / The Haussmann building
caption_attribution_description: Place Saint-Georges, Paris IXe. The statue is a bust of caricaturist Paul Gavarni.
context_page_description: Haussmann's renovation of Paris was a vast public works program commissioned by Emperor Napoléon III and directed by his prefect of Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870. It included the demolition of medieval neighborhoods that were deemed overcrowded and unhealthy by officials at the time; the building of wide avenues; new parks and squares; the annexation of the suburbs surrounding Paris; and the construction of new sewers, fountains and aqueducts. Haussmann's work was met with fierce opposition, and he was finally dismissed by Napoleon III in 1870; but work on his projects continued until 1927. The street plan and distinctive appearance of the center of Paris today are largely the result of Haussmann's renovation.
context_section_description: The most famous and recognizable feature of Haussmann's renovation of Paris are the Haussmann apartment buildings which line the boulevards of Paris. Street blocks were designed as homogeneous architectural wholes.  He treated buildings not as independent structures, but as pieces of a unified urban landscape.
  In 18th-century Paris, buildings were usually narrow (often only six meters wide); deep (sometimes forty meters) and tall—as many as five or six stories. The ground floor usually contained a shop, and the shopkeeper lived in the rooms above the shop. The upper floors were occupied by families; the top floor, under the roof, was originally a storage place, but under the pressure of the growing population, was usually turned into a low-cost residence. In the early 19th century, before Haussmann, the height of buildings was strictly limited to 22.41 meters, or four floors above the ground floor.  The city also began to see a demographic shift; wealthier families began moving to the western neighborhoods, partly because there was more space, and partly because the prevailing winds carried the smoke from the new factories in Paris toward the east.
  In Haussmann's Paris, the streets became much wider, growing from an average of twelve meters wide to twenty-four meters, and in the new arrondissements, often to eighteen meters wide.
  The interiors of the buildings were left to the owners of the buildings, but the façades were strictly regulated, to ensure that they were the same height, color, material, and general design, and were harmonious when all seen together.
  The reconstruction of the rue de Rivoli was the model for the rest of the Paris boulevards.  The new apartment buildings followed the same general plan:
  ground floor and basement with thick, load-bearing walls, fronts usually parallel to the street.  This was often occupied by shops or offices.
  mezzanine or entresol intermediate level, with low ceilings; often also used by shops or offices.
  second, piano nobile floor with a balcony.  This floor, in the days before elevators were common, was the most desirable floor, and had the largest and best apartments.
  third and fourth floors in the same style but with less elaborate stonework around the windows, sometimes lacking balconies.
  fifth floor with a single, continuous, undecorated balcony.
  mansard roof, angled at 45°, with garret rooms and dormer windows.  Originally this floor was to be occupied by lower-income tenants, but with time and with higher rents it came to be occupied almost exclusively by the concierges and servants of the people in the apartments below.
  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. The rue de Rivoli served as a model for the entire network of new Parisian boulevards. For the building façades, the technological progress of stone sawing and (steam) transportation allowed the use of massive stone blocks instead of simple stone facing. The street-side result was a "monumental" effect that exempted buildings from a dependence on decoration; sculpture and other elaborate stonework would not become widespread until the end of the century.
  Before Haussmann, most buildings in Paris were made of brick or wood and covered with plaster.  Haussmann required that the buildings along the new boulevards be either built or faced with cut stone, usually the local cream-colored Lutetian limestone, which gave more harmony to the appearance of the boulevards.  He also required, using a decree from 1852, that the façades of all buildings be regularly maintained, repainted, or cleaned, at least every ten years. under the threat of a fine of one hundred francs.
caption: Place Saint-Georges.
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