The Paris of Henry IV: Architecture and Urbanism - Hardcover

Ballon, Hilary

9780262023092: The Paris of Henry IV: Architecture and Urbanism

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262023091 ISBN 13: 9780262023092

Publisher: Mit Pr, 1991

The Louvre, the Place Royale (now the Place des Vosges), the Place and rue Dauphine, the Pont Neuf, and the H�pital Saint Louis were part of a building program initiated by Henri IV that would be unmatched in Paris for more than two centuries. Drawing on previously untapped notarial archives in Paris's Minutier central, Hilary Ballon provides a rich and original account of the crucial period between 1605 and 1610 when Paris was transformed from a medieval city decimated by war and neglect into a modern capital.

Ballon takes up each of the major building projects, showing how Henri IV's vision of Paris was translated into brick and stone. She relates the monarch's urbanism to his broader policy objectives: promoting domestic manufacturing, linking the court and commerce, and establishing Paris as the focal point of a unified French state.

Ballon reveals that such works as the Place Royale, the first planned square in Paris, and the H�pital Saint Louis, built to protect the city from the destabilizing effects of the plague, were the result of an interactive process between architectural form, social forces, and political vision rather than reproductions of an unyielding royal idea. Setting aside the traditional view of the monarch's urbanism as self-glorification, of his monuments and squares as static icons, she sees the buildings in the context of Parisian life, from their designs through construction to their use.

Ballon then shifts from a focus on the monuments to representations of Henri IV's Paris in maps, city views, and history books. She argues that the king's building program and centralizing policies initiated the development in France of a variety of topographical arts: among these Jacques Du Breul's 1612 history of Paris was the first to impose the city's topography as its organizing principle.

An Architectural History Foundation Book

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About the Author:

Hilary Ballon is Professor of Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, American architecture and urbanism at Columbia University.

Review:

"This delightful book elegantly documents Henri IV's architectural programs of 1605-10 . . . and helps us understand the surprisingly gentle humanity and charm that those urban groupings possess."
—The New Yorker

"King Henri IV of France . . . was not interested in courtly splendor, or books, or the arts; he was notoriously averse to spending money, even on his mistresses. But when it came to embellishing Paris, nothing was too good for him. Henri first entered the city as its sovereign after several sieges and half a century of civil wars, What he found was a decaying and ravaged medieval hodge-podge. By the time he died, in 1610, he had transformed it into one of the great European capitals. Just how he did this is the fascinating (and still relevant) story that Hilary Ballon tells in her admirably documented book."
—Olivier Bernier, Wall Street Journal

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