Capital Communes - from Paris to the Paris of the South - Essay Example

Capital Communes From Paris to the 'Paris of the South' ' This is a story of modern protest. It is also a rendering of Napoleonic era, Prefect of the Seine, Baron Georges Eugne Haussmann and his architectural legacy in the urban development of Paris, and contribution to a number of international projects, also reflected in reverberation of his designs throughout the nineteenth century metropolises of Europe and the Americas. Retrospective to more recent historiography on the topic are the Konvoluts or notebooks written by inter-war historian, Walter Benjamin (1927) Das Passagen Werken. Focused on articulation of the tensions between capitalism and communism, or the financial markets and labor, Benjamin's record of Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris as a Modern capital, is succinctly articulated through his examination of the nineteenth century Arcade; passages of consumer capitalism and leisure.i Caught between the early nineteenth century world of the arcade and Haussmann's design for a militarized republic, Baudelaire's Flaneur is assuaged with a "perspective [that] is lastingly reserved as in the nave of the church"ii Here, we see Benjamin's Marxist roots. Yet we also informed by his premonitory observance of the ideological drift of civil society toward what he argues is a phantasmagoria: a dream world of market based consumer-citizenship, that at once and the same time, the teleological mechanism by which authoritarianism is obscured. Arcade, Paris If the Arcade stood as the preeminent example as a built space for inculcating the collective unconscious toward misrecognition of Napoleon Bonaparte's true intent, and in this case, that would be speculative market measures that began to stratify the populations of Paris and its environs by class, then Haussmann's project of urban expansion with its "lavish, self-glorification of the bourgeoise" with its "loans totaling hundreds of millions of francs" confrontation with those living in marginal spaces became the victims of nothing short of "engineered destruction."iii Nevertheless, Haussmann's project proceeded as a renewal strategy for Paris. He also employed a large scale constituency of laborers to participate in the construction of the rehabilitation; hence stabilizing his political position against confrontation with worker dissent. Rationale for this perspective was not unfounded as, 'the Parisian workers were better organized militarily than in any earlier rebellion; that the street widening undertaken during the administration of Napoleon III would necessarily work to their advantage, should the assault on the city succeed; that for the first time, the barricades would be defended by cannons and regularly organized troops."iv The environmental impact of Haussmann's urban planning was pronounced in design, and also in terms of security. Haussmannization was distinctly a project of "strategic embellishment" that applied the concept of direct access to the workers' districts by opening up the thoroughfares for direct barricade. The system of open boulevards with a central node for systemization of public works and oversight also held promise for alleviation of poverty of districts such as Faubourg St-Marceau, through ready access to trade. The work commenced in the city centre surrounding Ile-de-la-Cit adjacent to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. He also extended the cross between the Louvre and the Tuileries, built the Boulevard Sbastopol. A site of leisure, Place du Chtelet became the center of the City's system of boulevards. Prior to his office, Paris was a city of moderate dimensions. Haussmann's new plan of advancement for the capital city resulted in the definition of neighborhoods, or modern system of 20 arrondissements. Public transportation also saw expansion, and the "opening of Paris" to the market linked the main road network between Gare St-Lazare the Rue Auber and Gare du Nord (built between 1861 and 1864 by Jacques-Ignace Hittorff), Gare de Lyon and Gare Montparnasse the Rue de Rennes. Tivoli Arcade, Paris A new system of travel was prioritized as an element within Haussmann's urban scheme. Linking urban and rural areas, the reconfiguration of the transportation routes was essential to the overall development of France during the Second Empire. Articulation of this project was one of the primary administrative concerns. The elegance of his configuration based on structural functionalist models almost resembling an organism, Haussmann's layout reflects his thought as an urban planner. He is discerningly Modern if not classically engendered. However, gone is Cartesian coordinate grid design seen in the cartography of Republican Rome. While a range of iconographical aesthetics and public discourses reference the convergence of Napoleon's identity with that of both Republican rulers (and divine principle), the planning of Paris in the nineteenth century was fostered by the dual logic of control and exchange. In Napoleonic France, planning, then, was primarily focused on channeling the masses, rather than merely organizing public space for participatory citizenship. Map of Paris Perhaps nowhere is Haussmann's masterpiece acknowledged than in the main thoroughfare of Place de l'Etoile (now Place Charles-de-Gaulle) where the Arc de Triomphe provides the hub for the twelve-spoked wheel rue configuration. On close observation one can see that optical illusion by building treatment faades underscores Haussmann's close attention to detail. He was inspired in particular by the dimensions of the four-storey houses built by Percier and Fontaine in the Rue de Rivoli, with rounded gables but without arcades on the ground-floor (see fig. above). More or less directly copied, this format was used for the buildings in all the new main roads made during this period. Redesign, Paris In collaboration with landscape architect, and urban planner, Adolphe Alphand, Haussmann's model of a utopian Paris includes the projects of Bois de Boulogne (1854) and the Bois de Vincennes (1860) and is precedent to later rehabilitation strategies, incorporating once functional aspects of the city into public works for recreation and ambient enhancement. Also involved in the vision of the parks project was Jean-Claude-Nicolas Forestier (1861-1930), the city's Conservateur des Promenades. The former rock quarry, Buttes-Chaumont (1867) in the north of the city is one such instance that continues to be maintained as one of the larger green spaces in the City of Paris. Environmental health was generally an aspect of the rehabilitation, yet with some resistance by impoverished neighborhoods in spite of intentions to mitigate known airbourne and sewage based infections and other communicable diseases. The Lariboisire Hospital, which was the first to be based on a system of wings, was brought into service in 1855; the Htel-Dieu was entirely rebuilt. The current shopping district of Les Halles is a commercial testament to Haussmann's retention of the fruit and vegetable markets. In short, he was in the last instance, concerned for Parisians and Paris, in perpetuity. Transportation System, Paris By 1870, in The Third Republic continuation of Haussmann's extraordinary campaign of urban transformation provided the basis from which to launch new social institutions that followed the worker influenced Paris Commune in 1871 which "had a significant impact on the evolution of these strategies."v The two chief administrative bodies, the dpartement of the Seine, and the national government continued oversight of the municipality, with emergent professional, philanthropic and defense organizations engaged in solving major problems in the city. As the capital exploded in the late 19th century, by 1920 Haussmann's Paris was comprised of a population of 2.9 million. Haussmann's systemic urban planning model made convenient the reinterpretation of commerce in France, resulting in specialized separation of commercial and industrial districts. Equally, Haussmann's extension of public works to suburb areas of Paris saw continuity as housing developments expanded to meet demand. Paris had become one of the World's great metropolises. Architecture for reception of the Exposition Universelle of 1878 was seceded by the development of the Chaillot, followed by construction of the Tour Eiffel for the Exposition Universelle of 1889. The Grand Palais and the Petit Palais and the Pont Alexandre III were built for the Exposition Universelle of 1900 evidences the projection of Benjamin's argument on consumption, and confirmed Haussmann's insight into the market based exchange of capital culture that was just beginning. The Expositions encouraged the dissemination of Haussmann's policies writ large. The Acadmie Royale d'Architecture was founded in 1671 by Louis XIV under the supervision of minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, as part of a policy gathering artistic, scientific and humanistic inquiry. Efficacy of France's formation of an aesthetic doctrine and the review of architectural practice was extended to universal discussions toward formative architectural theory and pedagogy throughout Europe and the Americas from the late 17th century to the mid-20th. Serving as a commission on architecture since the ancien rgime, the Acadmie set the pace for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the 19th and 20th centuries. Following Colbert's vision of an Acadmie as an agent for promotion of aesthetic and technical merits in public works ranging from royal buildings to bridges. Both public and private clients and architects in France sought architectural and civil engineering projects for review from the Acadmie, and the body also addressed general issues pertaining to architectural technology and law. Although not intended as an authority of standardization, as observed within the proliferation of Haussmann's ideas in urban planning in the Americas, pollination of the Parisian capital's model of barricade and capital speculation was in its very instigation a vehicle for things to come. Captured in early photographs, Haussmann's concepts of modernity were ghosts in a machine. So much so, as we will see, that emigration from Europe to South America was characterized by early globalization; and the phantasmagoric effect in Argentina's 'Paris of the South.' The built environment of Haussmann's metropolis led to the beginnings of Modern social documentation and representation of the collective unconscious through photography. Indeed, photographers themselves were relegated to the status of the worker, "The industrial nomads among new ground floor Parisians fall into three categories: commercial photographers; dealers in bric-a-brac who run the cheap bazaars and shops; and exhibitors of curiosities, particularly female giants."vi Translation of the early modern Republic's spatial design into everyday life could now be seen en masse from the outside. For European emigrants, South American presented opportunities unencumbered by direct engagement with the deeply rooted feudal relationships that had quickly become class stratified hierarchies of difference and inequity in distribution of wealth. Immigrants were seeking a new life but found an architectural environment closely approximating the one that they had left behind. By 1880, Buenos Aires, Argentina had evolved into a Metropole almost indistinguishable from the Beaux-Arts classicism and town planning of Haussmann's Paris.vii So competent was the municipal oversight of Argentina's capital during this period that it's economic and political position was a near approximation of a separate nation-state. Architecturally speaking, Haussmann's policies were augmented by plans of Italian and Spanish planners. Buschiazzo was responsible for expanding the Avenida de Mayo leading to the Presidential Palace. Similar to the environmental space rehabilitation of Paris, the opening up of Buenos Aires in the nineteenth century earned the Capital's reputation as the 'Paris of South America'. To the present, Buenos Aires built environment retains this civilizing complex. Banco National, Capital Federal, Bs.As., Argentina Haussmann's Metro-Communes The implication of law and order in the context of Haussmann's new urban metropolises was one of preconceived planning under Napoleon III. In hindsight, however, we can observe that the mitigation of revolt by way of urban systems is tautological in result and with long term ramification(s). As both Benjamin and his subject Haussmann have shown us, the spatial coordination of population control was given institutional and systemic form through monumental planning intended to create an open forum for civic engagement. The monumental project was also a strategy against civil war. Photography enhanced the knowledge of public environments, and encouraged the circulation of the built environment through imagery. Transformations in collective participation were, then, two-fold: 1) open society; and 2) consensus by way of tacit ideological or propagandistic circulation of representations of the new environmental psychology of metropolitan life. If the Modern Capital as site of national governance (read: capital market oversight) it is significant in terms of legal enforcement, both regulatory monitoring and jurisdictional determinant. Concomitantly, civil administration toward management of resources and social problems contracts the modern citizen into relationships of hegemony, or the collective unconscious that is not even apparent in the last instance: the protest against the employer, the school, the state. By the mid-twentieth century, with the inevitable expansion of capital speculation, the great urban projects of the nineteenth century under Haussmann persisted as arte-factual environments. In Argentina, so much so, that the 'Paris of South America' became the ultimate camera obscura in the 1970s and early 1980s under a bureaucratic authoritarian dictatorship that by virtue of its identification went largely undetected in its violence toward citizens. The implications of Haussmann's policies, and their influence on the development of modern metropolises has proved to be significant in the deployment of state sponsored instruments of force, "the speculative phenomena attendant on "Haussmannization" remain in for the most part in the shadow, the tactical interests of the reform - interests which Napoleon willingly concealed behind his imperial ambitions - emerge more clearly. A contemporary apology for Haussman's project is comparatively frank on the subject. It commends the new streets for 'not subserving the customary tactics of the local insurrections."viii Student Protests, Paris, France & Buenos Aires, Argentina And so it continues, like the photographs of working people popular in Haussmann's period, images of protest inform our everyday life, and knowledge of civilization. Read More