The Conceptions of a Haussmannian Nature
Every human needs space; it is one of the most quintessential factors of life that is easily underrated. In the middle of the nineteenth century, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann brought the idea of space into the megacenter of Paris. His renovations completely altered city life and the future of the landscape. Upon looking at his work, it is evident that he wanted to create public streets that exhibited the luxury of space, and luxury overall. But did he intend to initiate a more substantial theory of environmental aesthetics a century before it was fully recognized? And where, if not from political unrest, did his inspiration come? The renovations of Paris done by Haussmann embody the future aspects of environmental aesthetics and environmental psychology, while also being preceded by the return to nature philosophy of Laguier.
It would be difficult to understand the reasoning behind Haussmann’s renovations if the history of France was not looked at first. In 1852, the post-revolutionary period of the Second Republic in France, Napoleon III was elected as emperor of France. Prior to his election, France suffered over a decade of civil unrest. Beginning in 1789 and extending through 1851, a common theme in France was the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. France had become “a cauldron of political activism” (Elkins and Bachrach, 2020) with the increasing frustration from the working class of being denied suffrage. Furthermore, an economic decline in 1846 and full-fledged famine attacked the country, causing nothing other than increased pressure upon the ruling class. In 1848 substantial riots broke out and King Louis-Philippe abdicated the throne to flee the country for fear of his own safety. The Second Republic of France was established where yet another civil war broke out until finally Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was elected to the throne. In 1851, after Bonaparte grew weary of the assembly’s powers and wanted more freedom, a coup d’etat was instated. Due to this, barricades went up in the streets, riots pursued, and France was still facing civil unrest. To face these problems, the French Assembly reinstated France as an empire under Louis-Napoleon and renamed him Napoleon III. The history of France is one of class struggle and chaos, marked by several attempts to create a stable government.
The instability of the French government during this period was one of the significant factors behind Haussmann’s work. It does not take a genius to discover that when Napoleon III was placed as the Emperor of France he needed to find a way to control the public’s hostility. The way to do this was through Haussmann and his boulevards. The grand boulevards and facades of Haussmann were created to replace the easily barricaded “corridor streets” of medieval Paris. By enlarging the streets, creating a new roadmap of the city, and redistributing the neighborhoods, Haussmann not only beautified the city but created a place with substantially less chaos.
Aside from Haussmann’s work, there is a completely unprecedented theory of environmental aesthetics. To my own understanding, environmental aesthetics is a study of the environment and how it can affect a human’s development, creativity, and overall being. More abstract studies of nature and aesthetics like these began in the eighteenth century with Immanuel Kant. In his Critique of Judgement, published in 1790, Kant describes how art fails to compare to the beauty of nature and how nature “complement[s] the best habits of the mind” (Carlson, 2019). Kant began the spread of the idea of aesthetics through two major categories: the beautiful and the sublime. By the end of the eighteenth century, there were three final and concrete conceptions of aesthetics; the third and final aesthetic being the picturesque. The major differences between the three conceptualizations lies in the vitality of the environments. The beautiful is something that is often “small and smooth, but subtly varied, delicate, and ‘fair’ in color” (Carlson, 2019). While the sublime ultimately contrasts the beautiful because it is typically boundless, intense, or “defonitionless” (Carlson, 2019). The picturesque subtly combines the two notions with its ability to be consuming, yet gentle, while still “rich and forceful” (Carlson, 2019). Haussmann, through his designs, transforms Paris to embody the sense of the picturesque. The buildings, with their height and ornament, are vast, yet controlled through their dimensions. Paris is a city that was varied and irregular, so Haussmann attempted to reign in the irregularity and create some space to balance the urban center. The most interesting point of his work, however, is not that it is picturesque. Ask any passing stranger and they will tell you the tale of Paris’ well-known enchantment. What most struck my curiosity about Haussmann’s work was that he perfectly balanced the conceptualization of the picturesque with the intention of producing order. He was not a man centered around just aesthetics. He was hired by Napoleon III to create a more unified city, but his renovations embodied the perfect notion of the picturesque.
Digging further into the details of Haussmann’s work, it is important to note how, despite his intentions, the conceptualization of a perfect aesthetic inevitably plays into the philosophy of architecture. One of the central points in architectural philosophy is the “formation of and warrant for our basic grasp, and considered judgment, of architectural objects'' (Fisher, 2015). But what does that even mean? Fisher here is explaining how our bodies and minds interact with our physical surroundings, particularly with architecture. In greater detail, “beyond pleasure in architectural beauty or other “positive” aesthetic properties, experience of built structures also contributes to neutral and less positive states of mind, and shapes how we broadly take in our environment. A piece of that environmental understanding is local to the built structure itself: the ways we experience architectural objects may contribute to how we comprehend, and interact with, those objects'' (Fisher, 2015). Hence, the architectural structure of a building plays directly into its aesthetic, one could even say they go hand in hand, and this overarching principle can have an effect on the behavior of the person viewing the structure. This combination of aesthetic principles and the effect they can have on behavioral patterns is further developed through environmental psychology. Environmental psychology, not developed until the near end of the twentieth century, “identifies ways that...color, shape, light, and circulatory pattern shape our visual reactions and behavioral patterns within and around the built environment” (Carlson, 2019). Furthermore within the ideals of architectural philosophy as explained by Fisher, “architects can design so as to promote class equality—or solidarity, justice, autonomy, or other social phenomena as we might foster”. It is possible for someone’s behavior to be altered based on the environment they are in or the environment to be built to engage certain types of behavior. So, not only was Haussmann able to create order by widening the streets and forever eradicating the possibility of barricades, but the environment he produced, being light and airy, had a natural effect on the viewer to place them in a calmer state, and henceforth order was internally and externally established.
Now understanding the history of France, Haussmann’s purpose for renovation, the development of aesthetics, the philosophy of architecture, and environmental psychology, it is more understandable as to why Haussmann’s work was revolutionary. He changed public roads, demolished entire slums and neighborhoods, and connected several of Paris’ famous landmarks. But what undermines all of his work is the inherent principle of order that he created from the way he built the environment. It would have been plausible to create order in Paris without the massive stroke of demolition Haussmann painted through the city, but furthermore without the need to create an atmosphere of luxury. There was no requirement for the facades and buildings that faced the boulevards to be new and ornate apartment buildings. There was no requirement for each building to have the four to five-story height restriction and forty-five-degree roof pitch regulation to bring more sunlight to the street (E. Allen, 2018). All of these design factors oversought by Haussmann are what made Paris aesthetically develop into the prime environment it is today. The way Haussmann carried out his goal of pursuing order and the design elements he chose to implement gave fruit to an aesthetic utopia where environmental psychology played a part in the societal order.
Though Haussmann was instrumental in the civil success of Paris during his time, and the greater French empire at large, his ideas of a more open city can be traced back to Laugier. Marc-Antoine Laugier, a french Jesuit writer and diplomat, argued in 1753 that the return to nature was the most appealing and honest form of architecture. Though he was not an architect himself, “Laugier’s [work] was not a work of archeology, history, or even of allegory, but rather of philosophical aesthetics” (Bergdoll, 2000, 12). He emphasized the importance of nature in architecture, as well as art stemming from pure beauty, which is nature itself. “Let us keep to the simple and the natural, it is the only road to beauty” was Laugier’s philosophy for architecture and all aesthetics (qtd. in Bergdoll, 12). Laugier believed in the beauty of nature as the purest aesthetic that architecture should be modeled after. Haussmann, though not directly, aimed for Laugier’s beliefs.
The rebuilt Paris of 1870 mimicked Laugier’s beliefs because it created a more open and natural environment for the city. The tree-lined boulevards, wide street, and pitched roofs all aided this idea. Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine, wanted to create order and provide more sanitation, that is undeniable. But he also wanted to bring more nature into the bustling city. He turned away from the damp, dark, cold Paris and demolished it because sunlight and air were needed. It was not just for the aesthetic, it was meant for the benefit of the city as a whole. Haussmann followed Laugier’s philosophy to bring natural life and natural beauty back to the overcrowded Parisian center.
A potential flaw in the argument here is that many others may claim Haussmann’s physical architecture did not ‘cling to the natural’ because it is highly ornamented and luxurious. And to the people who may claim this fact, I hereby concede that what they say is true. His buildings are a Beaux-Arts style, the front facades being highly decorated. They do not scream in any way that they are similar to, or modeled after, nature. The precedents of Beaux-Arts architecture may be the columns and pediments of Neoclassicism with origins in Greek and Roman architecture, but the grandioseness of the time period becomes paramount to the other characteristics, making it difficult to see how nature plays a role in the architecture. The Paris Opera House, a landmark built by Haussmann during Paris’ reconstruction, is more of an eclectic style, combining Beaux-Arts style with Neo-Baroque architecture. Standing by itself, Paris’ architecture is one of high ornamentation where nature seems lacking. Yet, what is more significant to the city Haussmann recreated is that it is not just about the buildings as they stand on their own; it is about the environment that was created to be a whole. Haussmann developed these luxuriously decorated facades, though most were made very cheaply, because he wanted Paris to be the example of a perfect city: a perfect synthesis of environment and architecture. His ability to create space in a city where there previously was none, and do so in a manner that promotes nature and the picturesque is what makes his remodeled city so successful. It is the most prime example of how the calm of nature and the bustle of a city can work in harmony to produce something that overall makes the viewer charmed by it. Haussmann followed Laugier’s ideas but extended them to create a magnetism that affects the human persona, creating the perfect aesthetic and more order in the city due to the kind of interactions people want to have with the environment. He was able to use nature and aesthetics to create positive notions in the environmental psychology of the viewer. It was a combination of past principles set out by Laugier, and undiscovered ideas of the effect environments have on human behavior, that made Paris a significant architectural city.
Whenever examining a piece of architecture, it is important to ponder where the original source lies. As now known, Haussmann’s motives were set by Napoleon III to create order and promote health, but where did his design inspiration come? As every architect will tell you, the original source is antiquity. It is the ancient tale of the Greeks and the Romans, alongside their ability to represent nature in its most pure form through their architecture. For Haussmann, it may be where his inspiration came. He sought out a way to showcase Laugier’s emphasis on nature in an urban environment. Upon analysis, it is evident his work had not just logistical effects on how to create peace and order, but internal effects on the city-dwellers as well. Haussmann’s work was revolutionary because it exceeded its own time while also reaching back to the most basic and primitive ideals.
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