The Pavillon de l’Arsenal in Paris has invited LAN and Franck Boutté to curate the exhibition PARIS HAUSSMANN, Modèle de ville. Presented from January 31 to May 7, the exhibition enables visitors to rediscover this architectural heritage at all levels with more than 100 drawings, plans, archived documents, photographs by Cyrille Weiner, and numerous models.
Haussmann strove for everything, for everything in Paris to be “embellished… expanded… rehabilitated.”
 
Haussmann Baron expressed a wish that was both for the above and the below ground, for the beautiful and the useful, and from overall picture down to the smallest detail. In seventeen years, the prefect of Paris laid 600 km of sewers and 175 km of streets, built city halls for the arrondissements and schools, designed squares, parks, and woods, stimulated private investment, rebuilt neighborhoods in the city center, and envisioned those at the outskirts. Rarely has a public official had such an impact on popular culture. His name embodies the Grands Travaux, the major public works of the Second Empire, and by extension, the city’s transformations into the early 20th century. Still today, the name Haussmann delineates the city and gives shape to its urban cityscape. He personifies the city of Paris’ urban identity in the present day more than anyone else.

Another exhibition section is dedicate to Charles Marville, official photographer for the city of Paris under the Second Empire. Charles Marville (1813-1879) is renowned for his series that document the streets and squares of Paris before and during the Haussmann’s modernization program.
 
 

Description of the project by LAN

Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine from 1853 to 1870, profoundly transformed Paris, above and below ground, and from its center to its outskirts. His name by extensión embodies an entire century of Works that still today determine the city´s organization and identity. But who among us would view the urban networks created during the Second Empire as an exemplary network for mobility? The 19th century block as a high-performance tool for creating a sustainable city? Or a Haussmann building as the very archetype of flexibility? The exhibition Paris Haussmann analyses and explains how the Parisian urban model in the present day is in fact able to deal with the challenges facing the cities of tomorrow.

The exhibition functions as a demonstration, examining the city´s characteristics in and of themselves, outside their historical context. More tan 100 drawings, plans, archived documents, photographs by Cyrille Weinwe, and numerous models enable visitors to rediscover this architectural heritage at all levels. The exhibition redraws, classifies, and compares the roadways, identifies the public spaces, organizes the blocks and the buildings in function of their current geometry.

By analyzing the city´s form to understand its meaning, this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, which was concieved as a contemporary retroatlas of Haussmann´s territory, reinterpret the city both in terms of its volumes and is history and usages. The data acquired, togeher with the technologies used and canculations made by the architects Umberto Napolitano, Benoit Jallon and architect and engineer Franck Boutté, reveal a new urban structure that can be understood using contemporary criteria.  How “walkable” is Haussmann´s urban fabric compared to that of the world´s other major cities? Why is the incredibly high density of the Haussmann model so comfortable? How energy-efficient are its blocks and buildings in terms of current standarts?

The sharing of walls, mutability, density, materiality, compactness, a balance of full and empty spaces, a diversity of activies… all the city´s capacities revealed in the exhibition Paris Haussmann provide us with an opportunity to teinterpret the criteria of contemporary urban design within a system where performance requirements exist in balance with the pleasure of inhabiting, where resilience becomes architecture.

Around the exhibition

Paris Haussmann was conceived as a multi-faceted presentation, and thus a number of events have been scheduled around the exhibition that are open to everyone: conferences and panel discussions, guided tours, urban walks, even at night, joint events with the musée Carnavalet, a new performance titled In the Baron´s Office, which helps young audiences discover Haussmann in an informative playful way, as well as, in partnership with Schneider Electric, sponsor of the exhibition Paris Haussmann, and Enodo Games, creators of the video game The Architect-Paris, the first ever Parisian hackathon, open to architecture students throughout France: Haussmann 2.0, 48 hours to revolutionize Paris!

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Curators
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LAN - Benoit Jallon and Umberto Napolitano; FBC - Franck Boutté
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Place
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Pavillon de l´Arsenal (21, boulevard Morland 75004 Paris)
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Dates
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31st January to 7th May 2017
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Visiting hours and price
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from Tuestay to Sunday 11h - 19h
price.- Free entrance
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Baron Haussmann. Son of an imperial military intendant of Napoleon, Georges-Eugène Haussmann was born in Paris in 1809. Lawyer, Haussmann began a prefectural career in 1831. On June 22, 1853, Napoleon III appointed him prefect of the Seine, a position he held until 1970. During seventeen years, Baron Haussmann has directed a vast restructuring plan, which transformed medieval Paris into a modern and prestigious city. The objectives pursued by this ambitious program are: to improve hygiene and the circulation, and to beautify the city.

Among the major developments and urban planning conducted by Haussmann: the construction of stations (Gare de Lyon, Gare du Nord…) and roads, the opening of broad boulevards and avenues (Boulevard Henri IV, avenue de l'Opéra…), the creation of squares (Place de l'Etoile, place de la République…), the construction of theaters and churches, the development of new parks (Bois de Boulogne, Parc Montsouris, Parc Monceau...), a better water supply systems and the construction of a new unedergound sewerage system.

Haussmann was criticized for the immense cost of his project. Nevertheless, his role in the development of the city allowed him to be appointed a Senator in 1857, member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1867 and to receive the Legion of Honor medal in 1872. He remained Bonapartist despite the return of the Republic in 1870 and dedicated the end of his life to his memoirs. Haussmann died in Paris on 11 January 1891 and was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
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LAN (Local Architecture Network) was created by Benoît Jallon and Umberto Napolitano in 2002. LAN has received several awards: the Nouveaux Albums de la Jeune Architecture (NAJA) prize awarded by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication (2004); the International Architecture Award from the Chicago Athenaeum and the European Urban Centre for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies, the Archi-Bau Award, the Special Prize at the 12th World Triennale of Architecture, Sofia (2009); the AR Mipim Future Projects Award and the Europe 40 Under 40 Award (2010). In 2011 the office was awarded at the LEAF Awards with the Best Sustainable Development in Keeping with its Environment prize and at the SAIE Selection Awards.

Benoit Jallon. 18th May 1972 Grenoble (Fr). Fascinated by the body’s structure and its logical organisation, layers and strata, Benoit Jallon first turned to medical studies. However, his need for involvement and creativity soon led him to begin studying architecture. He graduated from the Villette School of Architecture in 2001 with a special mention from the jury. Curiosity and a thirst for knowledge have led him to travel widely, particularly in Italy.

Umberto Napolitano. 27th November 1975 Naples (It). Umberto Napolitano began his architectural studies in Italy and completed them in France at the Villette School of Architecture where he graduated in 2001 with a special mention from the jury. He rapidly developed a critical approach to the separation between theory and practice. In parallel with his architectural education, he also worked with a number of architects. His involvement in Franco-American workshops has given his work an international flavour and allowed him to absorb other cultures and skills.

 

 

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Published on: February 2, 2017
Cite: "Exhibition Paris Haussmann. Modèle de ville. One of most important urban renovations" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/exhibition-paris-haussmann-modele-de-ville-one-most-important-urban-renovations> ISSN 1139-6415
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