Summary: The city as work of art: London, Paris, Vienna – D. J. Olsen
(1986)
In 1880 Paris had already achieved the appearance and could already offer the
inner satisfaction of the city of the 1980s. Londoners envied the Parisians due to
couple of reasons. First of all the omnibus service of Paris was well-arranged, and
it was cheap, rapid and had regularity. Already in 1662 Paris enjoyed a regular
bus service of 3 routes, and in 1828 the first modern omnibus appeared. In 1855
a single company acquired monopoly, and Paris got one of the best omnibus
services worldwide. Around 1875 a largely underground, electrified metro system
emerged.
In 1881 Paris had three monster hotels: the Louvre (the oldest one, built in 1855),
the Grand (1862) or the Continental (new luxury hotel of the 70s). The Louvre
was in its youth a rarity, due to its splendour of decorations and furniture.
However there were more than 500 hotels around that time, in each price
category. For families and single men planning a long visit on a strict budget was
the ‘pension de famille’ an economic alternative.
The institution that best characterizes Paris was the café. All quarters of Paris had
a café. In those cafés neither taste nor expense has been spared, and the result
was positively dazzling. The café represented lightness and frivolity, in
comparison to a restaurant, which was something very serious. Both restaurants
and cafés were constantly furnished with guests. This manner of living seemed
both natural and needful for the Parisians, an English man said. Restaurants were
there in tremendous variations in price and pretension. Every generation was
convinced that the quality of cookery was on the decline, due to the fact that
first-rate chefs could get a much larger salary in for example London or Vienna.
However the quality of its meals (which went down), the splendour of its
decorations and the cheapness of its accommodations cannot in themselves
account for the hordes of visitors. It was more about what Paris was: “a city with
artistic, elegant, affable, polite, obliging people, who bring sensibility and taste to
all the things”. The manners and customs of the Parisians itself, was what the city
endowed with its charms. The class of rentiers was not bigger in Paris, than in
London, but the leisure class in London spent more of its leisure time out of public
view. What made Paris special, was: “its exterior quality, caused by the tastes
and ideas of a society, predisposed to live much more outdoors than indoors, and
to display itself often in public promenades, salons and theatres”.
Sundays the outdoor activities were most intense, which either scandalized or
enchanted visitors. What stroke visitors the most, was the decorum and good
humour of all classes of Paris society. In Paris everything was “perfectly
respectable and well arranged”. All classes of Frenchmen behaved better than
their English counterparts. However, the Parisians didn’t show their good
breeding towards the boorish English visitors. How the French rudeness to
foreigners established is a miracle. But, the educational system that France
achieved in the 19th century made communication between individuals and
between classes easier, than it was in England.
One thing London had, and Paris didn’t was the foot pavements: London was
surrounded by roads, very neatly maintained. Paris, on the contrary, had narrow,
dirty streets, and at night the streets were inadequately lighted. The streets
created more disgust, than charm. Before 1789 people could only walk for
, pleasure in the private gardens. However Haussmann’s cleansing operations
came, which made life safer for pedestrians.
Vieux-Paris had in the 17th century few charms: people moved out of central Paris,
if they could afford it. When the well-to-do in London moved out, they lived in
well-maintained parts. However in Paris, people that moved to the new districts
lived in a less pleasant total environment. The streets were stinking, dirty, narrow
and dangerous. One could live pleasantly in the 18 th century in Paris, but only by
insulting oneself from the city, and above all from its streets (creating self-
protected environments). However not everybody could afford this. Therefore
they started to live in new blocks of flats, which arranged their private lives a
degree of comfort. Outside, due to the Hausmann’s cleaning operations the
streets turned from a passage of horror, into an attraction in itself, contributing to
the pleasantness of life.
By 1850 Paris started to embody pleasure, making it public available. Paris gave
all classes places where they could congregate for pleasure. This also happened
in London, but in London pleasure had been less exclusive in the 18 th century
than in Paris.
At the end of the 18th century the shopping arcade emerged, to supplement the
parks and gardens as agreeable promenades.
The most complex, ambitious and successful enclosed environment in early 19 th
century was the Palais Royal. Outside such enclosed environments the streets
themselves were shunned by aristocracy and bourgeoisie. They wanted to
maintain a certain physical distance from other classes. However after the
Haussmann cleaning operation, the bourgeoisie abandoned the Palais Royal, for
the new streets and boulevards, which were drained, cleaned and lighted. Paris
remained an ‘out-of-doors city’. Parisians used the streets for promenading,
lounging and window-shopping. The boulevards offered the possibility to move,
and to see and to be seen. The mixture of coffee-houses, shops, hotels, baths etc.
made the new Haussmann streets an economic and urbanistic success. During
the Revolution intensive building development came along the route of the
boulevards.
The popular character of the boulevards reflected the political and moral nature
of France: egalitarianism. It was the mixture of classes participating in their
splendours and pleasure that gave them their special quality.
However by 1930 the western boulevards had lost of all their elegance and
significance. The boulevards have adopted themselves to a changed world. There
are masses of cinemas, shops and an orgy of electric signs. Increased traffic
made sure that there is “never again a place to lounge in”. Haussmann tried to
insert the vitality of the boulevards, but his attempt was not successful. However
the new streets in Paris had great luck in attracting business and customers. The
boulevards combined the attributes of the street and the park wisely. “The
French understood the street and realised a conception of it, which has become a
model of excellence”. In the new boulevards, they add the commerce and density
of the old Paris streets, with the greenery and spaciousness of the original
boulevards, which created the perfected streets: a concrete representation of
urbanity itself.
Supplementing the new streets and boulevards, were squares and both
relandscaped and totally new parks, also modelled on the English. On weekdays
