Le Paris Haussmannien 1853-1882

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Fig. 2. a. Le tissu haussmannien. La croix de Saint-André des rues Perdonnet et Louis-Blanc dans le 10e arrondissement.

Quatre îlots homogènes résultent du découpage sur les diagonales en 1866 d'une maille quadrangulaire plus ancienne formée entre les rues du Faubourg Saint-Denis, la rue Philippe de Girard et le Boulevard de la Chapelle.

b. La percée haussmannienne : percement du boulevard Voltaire à partir de la Place de la République.

La diagonale du boulevard perturbe le tissu né de la croissance progressive de la ville ancienne. De part et d'autre de la percée apparaissent des parcelles de récupération aux formes arbitraires, qui, par comparaison avec le parcellaire ancien, ont l'air d'autant plus irrationnelles. Mais la suture du neuf et du vieux est parfaite : la continuité du bâti est scrupuleusement restituée.

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Formes urbaines : de l'ilot à la barre

Fig. 5. Structure de l'ilot rectangulaire BAYEN-FARADAY-LAUGIER, le long du boulevard Pereire.

a. Composition des façades sur le boulevard Pereire.

b. A partir d'un élément de base en L, qu'on trouve dans les quatre parcelles les plus petites, sont réalisées des combinaisons en U (sur le boulevard Pereire) et en T (sur la rue Faraday), ainsi qu'une adaptation d'angle, ce qui donne à l'ilot sa configuration particulièrement rationnelle, due au regroupement des cours par trois ou quatre.

c. Cour commune à trois parcelles. La limite des parcelles est marquée par des murets qui portent des grilles. La cour se prête à de modestes dépôts et à des aménagements peu nombreux il est vrai, comme cet abri pour les vélos. Les murs sur cour sont simplement enduits; l'irrégularité des formes des fenêtres s'accommode mal d'un souci de composition qui est cependant évoqué par les assises d'appareil du soubassement.

The 1902 Building Code

How absurd it is to cut history up into arbitrary hundred-year slices that have nothing to do with reality. Socially as well as culturally, the early 1900s were still very much a part of the nineteenth century. The real watershed was World War I, for it marked the collapse of the socioeconomic system of nineteenth-century Europe. The early twentieth century, on the other hand, was the apogee of that system.

The slow evolution of the Paris apartment building after 1859 had led to a deep modification in façade ornament, resulting particularly from the appearance of bay windows, which were “officialized” in the 1893 building code. But the greatest changes were yet to come. In 1902 a new building code, drafted by the city planner Eugène Hénard and the architect Louis Bonnier, was enacted. It authorized architects to use the elements they had been clamoring for: in particular, strong silhouettes and dynamic relief. Head of the City Department of Streets, Louis Bonnier devoted himself to bringing about a renewal in the aesthetics of the apartment building. His first tool was an annual “façade contest” that brought the winning building’s architect public recognition for his creativity, and its owner an attractive tax exemption. The façade contest greatly stimulated architectural innovation and at the same time provided builders with a constant supply of models to copy (which was exactly what Bonnier wanted). When the 1902 building code was published, it included an extraordinary series of models—in all styles, but always in keeping with the new code’s spirit and letter.

Down to World War I, city building officials played an important role in controlling and encouraging use of the model defined in the official regulations (just as they had in the Second Empire). The run-ins that architects like Henri Sauvage had with them prove how autocratic they could be, when they suspected an architect of trying to get round the regulations.

The Composition
of Masses

A diagram showing how the 1902 building code affected building height.

The 1902 regulation on building height was the most generous in the city's history. While cornice height remained the same, roof volume was determined by an arc whose radius, varying according to street width, was extended by a 45-degree diagonal. Maximum building height thus rose to 32 meters (compared to 22.41 meters in 1784). Diagram courtesy of the Atelier Parisien d'Urbanisme.

Enormous Roofs

Unlike the 1859 and 1884 building codes, the 1902 code marked a total stylistic break. A huge increase in the volumetrics of roofs was combined with a transformation of building alignment (foreshadowed in 1893). In theory, cornice height had remained unchanged since the eighteenth century, which had made it possible for new buildings to fit in with earlier constructions reasonably well. But in the 1902 building code roofs were dramatically transformed: the circular arc used to define roof volume in the 1884 regulations was henceforth set not on a horizontal (the top of the building), but on a 45-degree diagonal. As a result, deep buildings gained several extra stories, and roofs became so

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Principal new streets in Paris built between 1850 and 1870. (Based on Departement de la Seine, *Les Travaux de Paris, 1789-1889; Atlas* (Paris, 1889), Plates xi and xii.)

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Three maps showing the lot pattern of the Halles district. Reprinted from Françoise Boudon, André Chastel, Hélène Couzy, and Françoise Hamon, *Système de l'architecture urbaine* (Paris: C.N.R.S., 1977).

1. Late fourteenth century.

2. Early eighteenth century.

3. Early nineteenth century.

The maps show the great stability of lot patterns in Old Paris. The traditional pattern was not significantly modified until Louis-Philippe's reign, when laws were enacted authorizing land expropriation for public use. Until then, new construction meant building up the old lots more densely.

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Fig. 2. a. **Le tissu haussmannien.** La croix de Saint-André des rues Perdonnet et Louis-Blanc dans le 10e arrondissement.

b. **La percée haussmannienne :** percement du boulevard Voltaire à partir de la Place de la République.