Paris: An Architectural History - Hardcover

Sutcliffe, Professor Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300054459 ISBN 13: 9780300054453

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1993

Synopsis

In this lavishly illustrated book, one of Paris`s leading historians links the beauty of the city to its harmonious architecture, the product of a powerful tradition of classical design running from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Anthony Sutcliffe traces the main features of the development of Parisian building and architecture since Roman times, explaining the interaction of continuity and innovation and relating it to issues of power, the social structure, the property market, fashion, and the creativity of its architects.

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Reviews

Featuring 250 illustrations (most in color), this superb architectural history argues that Paris's organic beauty stems from a continuous classical building tradition that has survived the onslaught of functionalist modernism. According to Sutcliffe, a professor of economic and social history at the University of Leicester, England, even Art Nouveau was rejected by the Parisians. It was found inimical to a design tradition that extended from Louis XIV to the Second Empire's modernization program led by architect/planner Georges-Eugene Haussmann to the present. The "machine age" architecture prominent in the 1960s and '70s, as Sutcliffe shows, has been challenged by a new generation of architects emphasizing human scale, tradition and a closer aesthetic relationship between a building and its site.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This valuable book summarizes not only the architectural development of Paris over 20 centuries but also much urban and political history as well. Sutcliffe (history, Univ. of Leicester) writes well, and his text falls within the English tradition of such figures as Donald Olsen, Sir John Summerson, and Mark Girouard, who interpret buildings primarily as social and historical documents. Sutcliffe does enthusiastic justice to Paris, long regarded as the most beautiful city in the world, a model of superb architecture and exemplary planning. This is a footnoted, narrative history organized chronologically, as opposed to a guidebook like Norval White's Guide to the Architecture of Paris ( LJ 4/15/92), which is arranged geographically by arrondissement. Recommended for all larger libraries.
- Peter Kaufman, Boston Coll.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300054459
• ISBN 13: 9780300054453
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232