Paris: Capital of The Nineteenth Century?

Paris: capital of the nineteenth century?
11/15/2011 12:05:00 PM
Geometric + Bourgeois logic of Paris. Preliminaries: Walter Benjamin and Paris Post-Revolutionary Paris Second Empire Paris Napoleon and Haussmann Napoleons Paris: Rationales Haussmanns Paris Commodities, spaces and the city Seeing the city: Ville surveillee Ville invisible?
Benjamin: German Marxist intellectual and cultural critic, 1892-1940 Shuttled between major European cities, but especially Berlin and Paris Focus on the city and the techno-culture of modernity. 3 Moments: Influence of Louis Aragons Paris paysan (1926) best book about paris, a micrological/surreal analysis Paris, capital of the nineteenth century (1927) The Arcades Project: Collected material 1927-1940 15,000 notes on the conjunction of nineteenth-century technology and culture in Paris. Archaeologies, fragments and constellations. Seeing Paris A phantasmagoria was a magic lantern that became popular in the early nineteenth century. It used back projection to parade a series of ghostly images before a startled audience who were unaware of their source. The spectral images of commodity culture: Paris as ville invisible? Public works in Paris
Until the early nineteenth century there were few concerted attempts to co-ordinate public works in Paris, and most were embellishments directed towards the edges of the city where land values were low and the costs of intervention could be contained.
Second Empire Paris Proclamation of the Second Republic, 1848 Louis Napoleon 1848 Revolution, bloody reprisals and a financial crash force the abdication of King Louis-Philippe Napoleon took a close personal interest in a Grand Design for Paris His agent was Georges-Eugene Huassmann, Prefet of the department of the Seine (1852-`869) 4Rationales: public health, congestion, security, prestige. 1: Public Health Public alarm over the cholera epidemics of the 1830s and 1840s The epidemic of 1848 killed 19,000 in Paris alone Most doctors believed that cholera was spread through local vectors: Poverty, unsanitary housing, overcrowding and defective sewers. Large scale street clearances were the only practical means of demolishing slum properties and constructing new sewers and water supply systems. 2: Congestion Rapid increase in population: 1801: 500,000 1851: 1,000,000+ Heightened pressure on the inner city: Overcrowding, traffic congestions (exacerbated by railways in 1840s, which accelerated both immigration and industrial and commercial development New avenues and boulevards to permit circulation 3: Security
Insurrection: Since 1789 no government had been safe from the threat of violent overthrow in the streets of Paris Barricades had been erected in Paris nine times in the 25 years before the Second Empire. Militarization of urban space: New thoroughfares: Rapid deployment of military throughout the city Avenues and boulevards too wide to be blockaded 4: Prestige Napoleon here visiting construction of the new Paris Opera with Haussmann wanted to make Paris the most beautiful city in the world the crowning climax to and theatrical setting for the pomp and power of the Second Empire. Haussmans Paris Atttilla of the straight line Haussman spent his first year in office implementing a detailed and systematic survey of Paris to provide the framework for the master-plan which he had drawn up on a scale of 1:5000 and displayed on an easel in his office. Key: 3 networks, Haussmans 3 Routes The first network ripped open the belly of Old Paris In 1856 as many as 14,000 people still lived in this maze of streets, alleys and courts: high incidence of poverty and overcrowding Haussman said he wanted to tear open Old Paris, the districts of riots and barricades, by a wide central thoroughfare which would pierce this almost impenetrable labyrinth from one side to the other. Ile de la Cite Haussmann developed key state institutions already established on the Ile de la Cite, creating a fortress without walls capable of controlling the restless arrondissements on both sides of the river
The second network was concentrated on the Right Bank and the eastern sections of the city. Spaces as commodities: Integration of finance capital and landed property: o Parisian property was more and more appreciated as a pure financial asset, as a form of fictitious capital whose exchange value, integrated into the general circulation of value, entirely dominates use value: David Harvey As its pulverized spaces were commodified, Paris became an increasingly divided city: poor literally marginalized orbiting the wealth in the centre The centre of the city was given over to the conspicuous commodification of social life: The power of money was celebrated as spectacle and display on the grands boulevards, in the grands magasins, in the cafes and at the races, and above all in those spectacular celebrations of the commodity fetish, the expositions universelles David Harvey Exteriors became interiors of the bourgeoisie, while panoramas, dioramas and photography brought the exterior into the interior. The boulevards lit by gas lamps, dazzling shop window displays, cafes open to the street.. became corridors of homage. David Harvey Le Bon Marche Originated as a small shop in 1838 and became a department store in the 1850s, a new building opened in 1867.
11/15/2011 12:05:00 PM
11/15/2011 12:05:00 PM

Paris: Capital of The Nineteenth Century?

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