Île de la Cité

Wednesday, 5 October 2016 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination:
Category/Kategorie: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, Paris / Île-de-France
Reading Time:  6 minutes

© GuidoR/cc-by-sa-3.0

© GuidoR/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Île de la Cité is one of two remaining natural islands in the Seine within the city of Paris (the other being the Île Saint-Louis). It is the centre of Paris and the location where the medieval city was refounded. The western end has held a palace since Merovingian times, and its eastern end since the same period has been consecrated to religion, especially after the 10th-century construction of a cathedral preceding today’s Notre Dame. The land between the two was, until the 1850s, largely residential and commercial, but has since been filled by the city’s Prefecture de Police, Palais de Justice, Hôtel-Dieu hospital and Tribunal de commerce. Only the westernmost and northeastern extremities of the island remain residential today, and the latter preserves some vestiges of its 16th-century canon‘s houses.

The Pont Neuf, the “new bridge” that is now the oldest bridge in Paris, was completed by Henry IV, who inaugurated it in 1607. The bronze equestrian statue of Henry IV was commissioned from Giambologna under the orders of Marie de Medici, Henry’s widow and Regent of France, in 1614. After his death, Giambologna’s assistant Pietro Tacca completed the statue, which was erected on its pedestal by Pietro Francavilla in 1618. It was destroyed in 1792 during the French Revolution, but was remade from surviving casts in 1818. The sculpture originally rose from the river on its own foundations, abutting the bridge; since then, the natural sandbar building of a mid-river island, aided by stone-faced embankments called quais, has extended the island, which is planted as the teardrop-shaped Parc Vert Galant in honour of Henry IV, the “Green Gallant” King.

The Place Dauphine, laid out in 1609 while the Place des Vosges was still under construction and named for the Dauphin of France, the future Louis XIII, was among the earliest city-planning projects of Henry IV. The space, essentially a triangle because of its promontory location, was made over to Achille de Harlay for development. Twelve lots were sold, and forty-five irregularly sized houses were constructed behind a standardized façade. The houses were built of brick with limestone quoins supported on arcaded stone ground floors and capped by steep slate roofs with dormers, very like the contemporaneous façades of Place des Vosges. There were originally two entrances to the Place Dauphine, one at the “downstream” point, through a kind of gateway centred on paired pavilions facing the equestrian statue of Henry IV on the far side of the Pont Neuf, and the second in the center of the eastern range. Badly damaged during the turmoil of the Paris Commune of 1871, the eastern range was swept away in 1872 to open the view to the monumental white marble Second Empire Palais de Justice (built 1857–68), like a glazed colonnade centered on the Place Dauphine, the remains of which now form a kind of forecourt to it. Few visitors penetrate the Place Dauphine, which lies behind them, and where all the other buildings have been raised in height, given new façades, rebuilt, or replaced with heightened pastiches of the originals.

© GuidoR/cc-by-sa-3.0 © David Monniaux/cc-by-sa-3.0 © Daniel Vorndran/DXR/cc-by-sa-3.0 © Benh LIEU SONG/cc-by-sa-4.0 Plaque commemorating the burning of Jacques de Molay © PHGCOM/cc-by-sa-3.0 Map of Île de la Cité © OpenStreetMap - Paris 16/cc-by-sa-4.0
<
>
Plaque commemorating the burning of Jacques de Molay © PHGCOM/cc-by-sa-3.0
Three medieval buildings remain on the Île de la Cité (east to west):

The oldest remaining residential quarter is the Ancien Cloître. Baron Haussmann demolished some of the network of narrow streets, but was dismissed in 1869 before the entire quarter was lost. Old engraved maps of Paris show how, when the Pont Neuf was built, it grazed the downstream tip, the “stern” of the island-ship. Since then, the natural sandbar building of a mid-river island, aided by stone-faced embankments called quais, has extended the island, which is planted as the small Vert Galant park (“square du Vert-Galant”), named for Henry IV of France, the “Green Gallant” king whose statue stands near the center of the bridge. It retains the original low-lying riverside level of the island. Nearby, a discreet plaque commemorates the spot where Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burnt at the stake, 18 March 1314. The upstream tip of the island is the site of the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation, a memorial to the 200,000 people deported from Vichy France to the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War.

Read more on parisinfo.com – Île de la Cité and Wikipedia Île de la Cité (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.




Recommended posts:

Share this post: (Please note data protection regulations before using buttons)

Rokycany in Czech Republic

Rokycany in Czech Republic

[caption id="attachment_159817" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Main Square © Miaow Miaow[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Rokycany is a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. It lies 17 km (11 mi) to the East from the region capital of Plzeň on the confluence of the River Klabava and the Holoubkov Brook. Alternatively, the Holoubkovský potok is referred to as the Borecký potok and the section of the Klabava River down to the confluence as the Padrťský potok. There is another smaller brook in the western part of the to...

[ read more ]

Skytower, the European Central Bank Headquarters in the Ostend district of Frankfurt am Main

Skytower, the European Central Bank Headquarters in the Ostend district of Frankfurt am Main

[caption id="attachment_6470" align="aligncenter" width="590"] August 2012 © Simsalabimbam/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The European Central Bank Headquarters is a building complex under construction in the Ostend district of Frankfurt am Main. It includes the existing Großmarkthalle, a new 185/165-metre-twin-skyscraper and a new low-rise building to connect the two. Located east of the city centre it will house the new headquarters for the European Central Bank (ECB). It is expected to be completed in 2014. ...

[ read more ]

Asmara in Eritrea

Asmara in Eritrea

[caption id="attachment_163596" align="aligncenter" width="590"] St. Joseph's Cathedral © flickr.com - David Stanley/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Asmara is the capital city and largest settlement in Eritrea. Home to a population of around 804,000 inhabitants, it sits at an elevation of 2,325 metres (7,628 ft). The city is located at the tip of an escarpment that is both the northwestern edge of the Eritrean highlands and the Great Rift Valley in neighbouring Ethiopia. Asmara is situated in Eritrea's central Maekel Region...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Djibouti - Tadjoura

Theme Week Djibouti - Tadjoura

[caption id="attachment_238116" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Tadjoura, the White city © Miaz85/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Tadjoura (Afar: Tagórri; Arabic: Tajūrā’, Somali: Tajuura) is one of the oldest towns in Djibouti and the capital of the Tadjourah Region. The town evolved into an early Islamic center with the arrival of Muslims shortly after the Hijra. An important port for many centuries, it was ruled by a succession of polities, including the Ifat Sultanate, Adal Sultanate, the Ottoman Empire, France...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Bhutan - Thimphu

Theme Week Bhutan - Thimphu

[caption id="attachment_221391" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Tashichho Dzong © Bernard Gagnon/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Thimphu is the capital and largest city of Bhutan. It is situated in the western central part of Bhutan, and the surrounding valley is one of Bhutan's dzongkhags, the Thimphu District. The ancient capital city of Punakha was replaced as capital by Thimphu in 1955, and in 1961 Thimphu was declared as the capital of the Kingdom of Bhutan by the 3rd Druk Gyalpo Jigme Dorji Wangchuck. The ...

[ read more ]

Stockholm Public Library

Stockholm Public Library

[caption id="attachment_163692" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Rotunda © Andrea Serio/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Stockholm Public Library (Swedish: Stockholms stadsbibliotek or Stadsbiblioteket) is a library building in Stockholm, designed by Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund, and one of the city's most notable structures. The name is today used for both the main library itself as well as the municipal library system of Stockholm. Discussed by a committee of which Asplund himself was a member from 1918, a design sc...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Moldova

Theme Week Moldova

[caption id="attachment_213938" align="aligncenter" width="590"] National Enoteca at Cricova © Cepaev/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The capital city is Chișinău (List of cities and towns in Moldova). Due to a decrease in industrial and agricultural output following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the service sector has grown to dominate Moldova's...

[ read more ]

Saintes in Charente-Maritime

Saintes in Charente-Maritime

[caption id="attachment_150665" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Cobber17/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Saintes is a commune and historic town in southwestern France, in the Charente-Maritime department of which it is a sub-prefecture, in Poitou-Charente. Its inhabitants are called Saintaises and Saintais. Saintes is the second largest city in Charente-Maritime, with 26,000 inhabitants in 2008. Its immediate surrounds form the second most populous metropolitan area in the department, with 57,000 inhabitants, the majo...

[ read more ]

The Eurotunnel

The Eurotunnel

[caption id="attachment_25930" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Eurotunnel schema © Arz - Commander Keane[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Channel Tunnel (French: Le tunnel sous la Manche; also referred to as the Chunnel) is a 50.5-kilometre (31.4 mi) rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent, in the United Kingdom, with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais, near Calais in northern France, beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. At its lowest point, it is 75 m (250 ft) deep. At 37.9 kilometres (23.5 mi), the tunnel has the longest unde...

[ read more ]

The Explorers Club

The Explorers Club

[caption id="attachment_23621" align="alignleft" width="590"] Honored Members © explorers.org[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Explorers Club is an American-based professional society dedicated to scientific exploration of Earth, its oceans, and outer space. Founded in 1904 in New York City, it currently has 30 chapters worldwide. In addition to sponsoring expeditions and lectures, the Explorers Club is known for their adventurous, exotic cuisine served at their banquets. Many of the founders of the Explorers Club had expe...

[ read more ]

Return to TopReturn to Top
© startup-berlin.com
Start-ups: Berlin still on the rise

The start-up scene in Berlin continues to win in importance and dynamics this year. However, London, by the number and...

Harmony of the Seas © flickr.com - FaceMePLS/cc-by-2.0
The Harmony of the Seas

MS Harmony of the Seas is an Oasis-class cruise ship built by STX France at the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard...

European Court of Justice © flickr.com - sprklg/cc-by-sa-2.0
European Court of Justice

The European Court of Justice (ECJ), officially just the Court of Justice (French: Cour de Justice), is the highest court...

Schließen