By Lisa Pasold
Paris,
France, is an unusually coherent architectural creature. Paris' modern
buildings have developed gradually out of earlier styles; palaces and
mansions have survived by transforming into apartments and shops, and
most streets harbor a range of buildings from various centuries. Our
Paris guide traces a millennium of building in Paris, and what’s amazing
is that so much remains visible and integrally important to the way
that Paris works, from the earliest Medieval period through the most
contemporary constructions.
Paris
evolved out of a walled city, and some historians argue that this alone
has given Paris a certain logic that London or Boston lacks. Paris has
really never lost its walls: 900 years after the 12th-century wall of
Philippe August, we now live in a city walled by its ring-road, the
Péripherique highway. This succession of walls, gradually torn down and
rebuilt through the centuries, has created a spiraling city, which grew
gradually out from the Ile de la Cité. It’s not surprising that some of
the oldest buildings are near the center of the spiral.
The Medieval Period (1100-1526)
In
52 BC, the Romans defeated a tribe called the Parisii and established a
city they named Lutetia, which probably means “swampy.” Today, that
city is Paris—and it’s still swampy in the springtime! Traces of Roman
architecture remain visible in Paris: if you look at a map, Rue
Saint-Jacques cuts right through the middle of the city and was the main
Roman road in and out. But when the Roman Empire crumbled, its
architectural genius disappeared as well, and the Dark Ages were
actually a step backwards architecturally. During the early Middle Ages,
the people of Paris sometimes stole and relocated entire sections of
Roman walls to use for their own buildings, because the Roman walls were
so much sturdier. During this entire period, the “architect” per se
didn’t yet exist, and important Paris buildings were designed and
constructed by teams of masons.
...
The Renaissance (1515-1643)
In
1515, Francis I took over the French throne, to the immediate benefit
of Parisian art and architecture. Francis was a great art lover and
reader (unlike several previous monarchs, who were functionally
illiterate), and he surrounded himself with the best creative minds of
the time. He invited Leonardo da Vinci to Paris and hired Italian
architects to renovate the Louvre. With Francis, the Renaissance arrived
in Paris with a bang. He was the French equivalent and contemporary of
England’s Henry VIII, without the multiple wives; the French capital
surged with life and new buildings. Renaissance ideas insisted on a
sense of human proportion in all the arts, including architecture. As a
result, buildings of this time can be read as metaphors for the human
shape: their solid base is the foot of the building, the elegant middle
is the building’s body, and the peak of the roof, with gabled windows,
is the hat. These carefully-proportioned ideas really initiated the
concept of Classical architecture in Paris.
...
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| Versailles garden front, Le Vau, Louis, 1612-1670, photo: Penn State Libraries Pictures Collection |
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| A typically Parisien scene, by caribb |
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Church of Saint-Paul Saint-Louis, Paris, France, by fmpgoh |
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