Boulevard Haussmann in Paris

6 October 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Paris / Île-de-France, Shopping Reading Time:  6 minutes

Boulevard_Haussmann - Street sign © flickr.com - Sergio Calleja/cc-by-sa-2.0

Boulevard Haussmann – Street sign © flickr.com – Sergio Calleja/cc-by-sa-2.0

Boulevard Haussmann, 2.53 kilometres (1.57 mi) long between the crossings of Boulevard des Italiens / Boulevard Montmartre and Rue de Monceau / Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré from the 8th to the 9th arrondissement, is one of the wide tree-lined boulevards created in Paris by Napoleon III, under the direction of his Prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann. The Boulevard Haussmann is mostly lined with apartment blocks, whose regulated cornice height gives a pleasing eyeline to the Boulevard. The department stores Galeries Lafayette and Au Printemps are sited on this street.   read more…

Portrait: Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann and the modernization of Paris

24 February 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Architecture, Paris / Île-de-France, Portrait Reading Time:  20 minutes

Baron Haussmann monument on the cross road of Boulevard Haussmann and Rue de Laborde © Ralf.treinen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Baron Haussmann monument on the cross road of Boulevard Haussmann and Rue de Laborde © Ralf.treinen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann, 27 March 1809 – 11 January 1891), was the Prefect of the Seine Department in France, who was chosen by the Emperor Napoleon III to carry out a massive program of new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris, commonly called Haussmann’s renovation of Paris. Critics forced his resignation for extravagance, but his vision of the city still dominates Central Paris. Haussmann was born in Paris on 27 March 1809, at 55 rue du Faubourg-du-Roule, in the neighborhood called Beaujon, in a house which he later demolished during his renovation of the city. Haussmann’s family originated from Alsace. He was the son of Nicolas-Valentin Haussmann (1787–1876), a senior official in the military establishment of Napoleon Bonaparte, and of Ève-Marie-Henriette-Caroline Dentzel, the daughter of a general and a deputy of French National Convention, Georges Frédéric Dentzel, a baron of Napoleon’s First Empire. He was the grandson of Nicolas Haussmann (1759–1847), a deputy of the Legislative Assembly and of the National Convention, an administrator of the Department of Seine-et-Oise, and a commissioner to the army.   read more…

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