I finally have another city focus update for you all.
Here's the link to the first one in case you want to go back and read that one. I probably won't have a map to go with this one unfortunately, but
this map is a good overview of the OTL renovations of the street layout done by Baron Haussmann.
Spotlight on the City #2: Paris, France
The presidency of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte brought about many changes to France during the late 19th century. His thirty-one years as president transformed the country from a nation in decline wracked by wave after wave of instability and upheaval to one of Europe’s leading powers with a military, economic, and cultural presence felt around the world. Louis Napoleon brought a much needed extended period of stability and prosperity to France. One of the most striking effects of Louis Napoleon’s presidency can be seen and felt in the French capital itself. Louis Napoleon continued the legacy of the French Revolution in throwing out the old system, modernizing and elevating Paris to a global cultural center.
In the early 19th century, Paris was still much the same as it was during the French Revolution. The neighborhoods at the center of the city on the Ile de la Cite and north of the Louvre were still densely populated and camped. In many areas of the city, the narrow, winding streets that had been laid out in medieval times remained. King Louis Philippe began some public works projects to improve the city during his reign. The Place de la Concorde was constructed in 1836, along with the final completion of the Arc du Triomphe de L’Etoile. The Comte de Rambuteau, Prefect of the Seine[1], laid out what is now the Rue Rambuteau between the Palais Royal and the Marais district. The widening of this avenue served as a precursor to the later planning for the city under Louis Napoleon. Additionally under Louis Philippe, the July column was erected in the Place de la Bastille where the fortress and prison had once stood in the east of the city center.
However, much of the city still had problems. Riots occurred almost yearly during the reign of King Louis Philippe, culminating in the destruction of the monarchy in the Mid-Century Revolutions. During the first half of the 19th century, the population of Paris more than doubled from 500,000 to over a million people, and the city strained to accommodate such growth. The central arrondissements were packed tight with people. The sewers emptied directly into the Seine, making outbreaks of cholera and other diseases increasingly frequent. Cholera outbreaks in the Ile de la Cite and nearby neighborhoods in 1830, 1848, and 1852 killed over twenty thousand people in each epidemic. These issues in Paris and other urbanizing cities throughout France were a major spark in the ousting of Louis Philippe.
When Louis Napoleon was elected president of France, he consulted with the Comte de Rambuteau and other architects and planners from throughout France on renovation plans for Paris. After many applications and personal input by president Bonaparte, George Eugene Haussmann was chosen as the Prefect of the Seine to replace Rambuteau. The Prefect of the Seine position held authority over Paris, and Haussmann’s renovations began soon after his appointment in 1851. The first phase implemented by Haussmann was the consolidation of east-west and north-south axes through the center of Paris. The main east-west axis already largely existed as the Champs-Élysées stretching from the Arc du Triomphe de L’Etoile to the Louvre. Under Haussman’s direction, the axis was extended east as the completed Rue de Rivoli between the Louvre and the Hotel de Ville, and a widening of the Rue de Saint Antoine to the Place de la Bastille and the Place Bonaparte[2]. The north-south axis went along the Boulevard de Saint-Denis through the Ile de la Cite and on the Rue de Saint Michel south of the Seine. These two paths through the city created a cross along which traffic from all directions could flow more easily into, out of, and through Paris. However, this was only the start of the renovation that Haussmann would have planned for Paris.
Haussmann continued to wash away the older sections of Paris by widening more streets, destroying the old city walls from before the Revolution to create new treelined boulevards, and constructing railway stations on the outskirts of the city center to connect Paris with outer cities. The most important of these became the Gare d’Arsenal located between the Place de la Bastile and the Seine and the Gare du Nord where the Rue Saint Denis met the Boulevard du Lafayette[3]. Both stations served as vital arteries to the city. To facilitate the construction of tracks outward from these locations and other projects put forth by Haussmann, Louis Napoleon and Haussmann also officially annexed several suburbs surrounding Paris. In 1855, the suburbs of Montmarte, Belleville, and Bercy were annexed into the city of Paris. By Louis Napoleon’s death in 1881, Paris had further expanded to all the area within the outer ring of fortifications and more.
Haussmann’s renovations also included the construction of many parks and monuments throughout Paris. The parks were envisioned by Louis Napoleon during his exile in London and his fascination with that city’s Hyde Park. When he was elected president of Paris, Louis Napoleon turned the two former royal hunting grounds on either side of the city into large park areas as large as some of the arrondissements, far larger than any public park in Paris before. These became the Bois du Boulogne on the west, south of the Champs-Elysees and the Bois du Vincennes on the east, along the extension of the Rue Saint Antoine. The Bois du Vincennes also features the Chateau de Vincennes, renamed the Chateau Daumesnil after the park’s creation, with the keep and much of the castle restored during this period.
Other monuments constructed in Paris during the late 19th century were primarily dedicated to the French Revolution or to the major wars of the era. Following in his uncle’s footsteps, Louis Napoleon wanted to construct a triumphal arch similar to the Arc du L’Etoile and the Arc du Carousel in the Neoclassical style following the European Wars. From 1872 to 1875, workers built the Arc de Triomphe de Bonaparte in the center of the Place Bonaparte in eastern Paris. Unlike either of Emperor Napoleon’s arches, the Arc de Triomphe de Bonaparte was built of a red sandstone brick from the Vosges. The monumental construction continued after the era of Louis Napoleon and Haussmann as well. On the centennial of the French Revolution in 1889, a grand statue was unveiled on the western promontory of the Ile de la Cite dedicated to the revolution. The statue is a bronze recreation of Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People. A young woman, the personification of Liberty waves a flag above her head in one hand while clutching a rifle in the other. The base of the statue depicts a group of people following Liberty as in the painting. The statue’s ingenious construction comes from a collaboration between Isidore Bonheur and Gustave Eiffel. Eiffel, who later designed the Jefferson Tower in Saint Louis, Missouri, designed a hollow iron lattice similar to that of the Jefferson Tower in order to support a statue as large as that of Liberty Leading the People. The statue’s location required the movement of an older statue of King Henri IV of France, which is now located nearby in the Place Dauphine.
The final piece of the grand Parisian monuments was completed in the years following the Alliance victory in the Great War. President Paul Déroulède, who succeeded Leon Gambetta after the latter’s death in 1913, gathered support nationwide for a large memorial to be built in Paris dedicated to those soldiers lost in the Great War. Architect Hector Guimard[4] won the extensive design contest with his blending of the older themes of Parisian architecture with more modern 20th century architectural innovations. Guimard proposed a triumphal arch similar to the ones previously built in Paris, but massively scaled up. With the planned site for the memorial on the Champs de Mars, it had to be large and grand enough to be a suitable memorial. Guimard scaled the arch’s design up to be 125 meters wide at its base, and 140 meters in height[5]. This made the arch over twice as large as the Arc de L’Etoile. To make sure the Arc de Triomphe d’Alliance was structurally sound, Guimard incorporated cast iron bars on both the interior, as well as partially decorative cast iron columns around the outside of the legs of the arch. The Arc d’Alliance was the largest undertaking of modern Parisian construction yet, taking six years to complete. Guimard also added an additional functional aspect to the Arc d’Alliance. The interior of the arch above the ceiling included several spaces for offices. Since the opening of the Arc d’Alliance in 1917, this office space has mostly these have been occupied by government ministries.
[1] As far as I can tell, the Prefect of the Seine was essentially mayor of Paris.
[2] OTL Place de la Nation, formerly the Place de Trone.
[3] ITTL the Rue de Lafayette goes west all the way to the Madeleine.
[4] Guimard is one of the most renowned art nouveau architects, and is known for designing among other things the Paris metro entrances.
[5] For the Arc d’Alliance I basically scaled up the dimensions of the Arc de Triomphe to the base of the Eiffel Tower.