Haussmanization

While at a bookstore the other day, I noticed a title called "Lost Walks of Paris." It was in a travel section, and was a travel book of sorts, yet it was something more. It was a book that had many streets that you could walk today, and it compared how Hausmannization of Paris had changed the layout of the city. It was a fascinating work, for, to my knowledge, no re-creation of a city had or has ever been as complete and as expansive in such as short time as what Haussman did to Paris (Brasilia doesn't count, b/c there was no city there before its construction, and given the wise response of most cities to Le Corbusier's ideas for them....).

At any rate, I'm not one to often consider in depth the use of space (I find myself considering power and the nature/role of the state far more often), yet it was a fascinating look at the reconstruction of space. Yet it left me a little unsatisfied, for while the material, and particularly the photographs themselves, were intriguing, the author treated Haussmanization as a "loss" for Paris. Throughout, he laments the changes from the pre-1850s period, and in case you didn't get the point, he has an epilogue that is roundly negative towards the post-1850s shift.

Which left me wondering a few things...first, he certainly wasn't IN Paris in the 1850s, so (throwing aside questions of personal aesthetics, as well as any Shirley Maclaine tendencies he may have concerning reincarnation) was it really as beautiful as he claimed? Second, why is the re-imagining and recreation of space in a city automatically negative? Certainly, many such projects are detrimental to cities and to the space around them (see Erik's blog on the parking garage in Tacoma), yet some changes can be functional AND aesthetically pleasing. I visited Paris about 15 years ago (certainly post-Hausmann), and found it a beautiful city. Finally, while I certainly understand what Haussmanization did for the ability of the state and police to monitor society in Paris in the post-1848 era, it has also proven a hidden blessing, given the number of pedestrians and the crowding of Paris as urban migration grew throughout the 19th and 20th centuries...

It's simply a shame to see somebody completely throw out a project as big as what Hausmann did just because it led to "changes."