Homogenized Haussmannization

In this piece, Clark successfully and almost-arbitrarily presents the pros and cons of Haussmann’s effort in redeveloping Paris’s infrastructure during the 19th century. He highlights arguments on both sides of the debate; primarily, nostalgic aesthetics versus spectacle-creation, and addresses the validity of such discussions by making reference to the artwork of several artists during the time including Manet and Van Gogh. This article once again reminds us that art representations provide narratives which seek to consolidate and inform about the economics, politics, social hierarchy, and traditions of a setting in a particular historical time period. Art demands more than an assembly of oil pastels and watercolors, and of careful brush strokes; instead, it is the compilation of an individual artist’s opinion regarding the respective society, and should be interpreted as such, furthermore, it should be compared and contrasted with other artwork of that time period in order to establish a more solid interpretation of history.

Haussmann’s urban development project generated unprecedented debate regarding the costs and benefits in reconstructing Paris as well as its social underpinnings, a discussion which remains highly contested to this day among art historians. An urbanization model that required seventeen years to complete dissolved the traditional lifestyle of citizens in the Old Paris, and the constriction of social activities to purpose-based encounters is, understandably, the main argument on behalf of the critics of Haussmannization. Haussmann “built within Paris two cities, quite different and hostile: the city of luxury, surrounded, besieged by the city of misery…[he] put temptation and covetousness side by side” (29). In this claim, Louis Lazare directly accuses Haussmann for the socio-economic instability of their city as a result to organized confinement of building structures. Despite having widespread criticism, Haussmann’s urbanization initiative was reciprocated in towns throughout Europe; even modern-day cities resemble such infrastructure.

Clark also addresses the economic development stemming from the reconstruction of Paris and argues that the middle and upper classes, in particular, greatly benefited from Haussmannization. Centers for shopping and exchange became backdrop to the development of cities during the second half of the 19th century and quickly became social centers among the bourgeoisie. In Clark’s analysis on the effect of business development which ignited the expansion of a middle class and reinstated elite privilege, we observe a stark contrast between increased purchasing power to the moral and social deterioration described earlier in his article.

Therefore, to argue that the construction of somber buildings and adjacent carefully-organized streets dissolved the communal atmosphere characteristic of the Old Paris, is to argue that contemporary cities continue to deprive citizens of innocent moral fiber lost to the brutal modernity. Furthermore, this article demands that we acknowledge the power of urban infrastructure as both a form of aesthetic art and a critical agent in social development. This debate of Haussmannization is parallel to that being raised on Smart Growth urbanization today. Is the restructuring of housing and business projects in the 21st century destined for the end of multiformity and “no more surprise” as 19th century Paris was subject to? And, furthermore, must earnest communal practices to be sacrificed for the pursuit of modernity?