City of Light
Author | : Rupert Christiansen |
Publisher | : Basic Books |
Total Pages | : 153 |
Release | : 2018-10-09 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781541673434 |
ISBN-13 | : 1541673433 |
Rating | : 4/5 (34 Downloads) |
Download or read book City of Light written by Rupert Christiansen and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sparkling account of the nineteenth-century reinvention of Paris as the most beautiful, exciting city in the world In 1853, French emperor Louis Napoleon inaugurated a vast and ambitious program of public works in Paris, directed by Georges-Eugè Haussmann, the prefect of the Seine. Haussmann transformed the old medieval city of squalid slums and disease-ridden alleyways into a "City of Light" characterized by wide boulevards, apartment blocks, parks, squares and public monuments, new rail stations and department stores, and a new system of public sanitation. City of Light charts this fifteen-year project of urban renewal which -- despite the interruptions of war, revolution, corruption, and bankruptcy -- set a template for nineteenth and early twentieth-century urban planning and created the enduring landscape of modern Paris now so famous around the globe. Lively and engaging, City of Light is a book for anyone who wants to know how Paris became Paris.