Haussmann's changes to Paris (Extra Portfolio Task)

The late nineteenth century brought a new way to how people could spend their days with the onset of urbanisation and also with world time being standardised in 1912. Due to the industrial revolution, rural workers from the countryside and abroad, poured into the major cities of the world searching for employment.

'A policy of discouraging building outside the city limits had resulted in a population of well over one million being crammed into a realtivly small area' (Tinniswood, 1998, p144). In the outer edges of paris the slums grew as the population doubled and tripled, bringing with it poor health and disease from the closeness in which the working class were forced to live. The fear of illness spreading from the slums to the richer city center, meant change was needed. Baron Haussmann was brought in by Napoleon III to remodel the city and in doing so, modernize Paris. '..According to the duc de Persigny, the Minister of the Interior, Haussmann was just the man to push through radical change' (Tinniswood, 1998, p144). Haussmannisation was the term given to this major change and it began in 1852 carrying on till after 1870. The slums were destroyed and in their place boulevards and streets were built. (PJ- Director History Department, 2002-2004)

Bibliography

• Tinniswood, A. (1998) 'Visions of Power: Ambition and Architecture from Ancient Rome to Modern Paris', London, Reed Consumer Books Ltd
• PJ- Director History Department (2002-2004) 'Paris in the 19th century: from walled city to agglomeration' [Internet], Available from: <http://www.parisrama.com/english%20version/pages_history/haussmann.htm > [Accessed 24 March 2010]