Conclusion

The tumultuous nineteenth century brought Parisian led regime change in 1830, 1848 and in many respects 1870. Although Napoleon III and Haussmann had hoped their Paris works would tame the capital city as they constructed uniform boulevards and transformed the crowded medieval centre into a bourgeois space. Throughout the twentieth century, the movement of people and goods throughout the Paris region remained a challenge and official maps showed how to address that issue. The German occupation during World War II effectively ended any hope of Prost’s 1934 plan to come to fruition. However, the damages afflicted on the city during combat allowed leaders to refocus their attention on the city. The pre-war work done by the Service géographique, Jaussely, and Prost allow future urban officials, such as Lopez and Bernard Lafay, to address problems such as increased traffic, parking, housing shortages, decentralization, and increased sprawl. The end of the war shifted national priorities away from the capital but by the 1950s, economic growth meant that urban planners needed to focus yet again on ameliorating development in greater Paris.

The Rise of Suburban Paris

This chapter examines the 1934 Carte générale de l’aménagement de la Région parisienne (Carte générale), a brightly-coloured, multi-page representation of Paris and its suburbs. Parliament passed ‘la loi du 14 mars 1932’ which officially defined ‘la région parisienne’ geographically as the area within a thirty-five-kilometre radius from the ‘parvis Notre Dame.’ A forty-member commission chose Prost’s Carte générale and named him Urbaniste en chef. Prost’s map, the last officially approved cartographic proposal for the capital under the Third Republic recognized the changing nature of early-twentieth century cities, where the automobile enhanced personal movement and overwhelmed nineteenth-century infrastructure. Reinforcing the desire to both know and control the growing region and address current transportation infrastructure inadequacies, Prost highlights new autoroutes and clearly delineates – geographically – where the region ends. Prost acknowledged the growing presence of the banlieue (suburb). He followed Jaussely’s lead and documented future development and existing green space. Prost also suggests controlling urban growth. This chapter investigates how Henri Prost’s Carte générale demonstrates the government’s desire to move beyond the ideals of urbanism in Jaussely’s 1919 Plan. Prost provides a much more realistic plan to address the region’s needs.

Introduction

Following Napoleon III’s fall, the Third Republic looked to create a Republican capital city, one that broke from Haussmann’s urban ideals. As successive governments hoped to create a republican capital city, they believed it plausible for the new regime to take the best of the imperial city and make it republican; highlighting modernity, security, and growth. This introductory chapter establishes these aims and relates my work with current research on the development of Paris and French cartography.

The Beginning of French Urbanism

This chapter examines Leon Jaussely’s 1919 Projet lauréat de la section générale du concours du plan d’extension de Paris (Plan d’extension) as a result of the 1919 loi Cornudet, which proposed that any French city with a population greater than 10,000 submit a ‘projet d’aménagement, d’embellissement et d’extension.’ The legislation grew in part from the influence of the Musée social movement, which became the focal point of studies of hygiene, social reform, and ultimately urbanism. The Musée social pushed for the better regulation of growth and the incorporation of more green space into French urban agglomerations. Jaussely joined with Roger-Henri Expert and Henri Sellier to submit their Projet lauréat, which won the première prime prize, Jaussely used the map to address what he, Expert, and Sellier wished to see in a modern French metropolis. Jaussely’s sizeable hand-painted Plan d’extension marks the beginning of modern urban planning in France. Jaussely incorporates recommendations healthy living environments for residents and visitors. New parks and cités jardins in the suburbs incorporate usable green space. In addition, new ports, aérogares, and rail stations on the agglomeration’s edge ensure ease of movement over the large expanse of territory.

Creating Map Readers

The loss to the cartographically proficient Prussian army in 1870 initiated a drive to introduce more geography and maps into French society. One way to do that was through education. Jules Ferry’s 1881 reforms made primary school laïque (secular), free, and obligatory. In addition, classrooms textbooks such as Fouillée’s Le Tour de la France par deux enfants taught the benefits of geography. This cartographic introduction provided immediate access to small, simple maps to millions for the first time, effectively democratizing them on a large scale. As Fouillée introduced maps to schoolchildren, Vidal de la Blache promoted physical geography in France, the study of which will improve topographical accuracy on future maps. as the French learned how to read cartographic documents as the Third Republic progressed, I look at the changing nature of map publishing at the end of the nineteenth century and how that transformation affected future cartographic products. Enhancements in technology facilitated a more robust cartographic publishing industry, one in which printing in colour became easier and less expensive and, as we see throughout the book, more prominent.

The Triumphant Republic

This chapter examines Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand’s Travaux de Paris, an atlas containing a series of maps that present the spatial and technical organization and amelioration of the city from 1789 to 1889. I focus specifically on planche (map sheet) XIII documenting ‘Paris en 1889: Les Opérations de voiries exécutées entre 1871 et 1889’ (‘Opérations de voiries’) as it documents the government’s ambitious Parisian road-building drive. Alphand’s ‘Opérations de voiries’ employs bright yellows and reds to celebrate the city and reaffirms the importance of an effective road network to Paris. By planning and building these streets and avenues and then publishing a map documenting its progress, the government proved its commitment to bettering all of the city’s neighbourhoods. In addition to demonstrating a more egalitarian approach to Paris betterment, chapter two argues Alphand’s work here also conveys authority and stability in the early republic. Perhaps more important is its presentation of the city. Here, the government’s definition of ‘Paris’ ends at the Thiers’ 1840s wall. By limiting his time and efforts to this space, Alphand reinforces a bourgeois view of the capital, and suggests that any existing development beyond that line does not merit cartographic representation in a map representing Paris.

Working with Maps

In order to understand fully the proposed communication circuit between map maker and map reader, one may turn to a variety of tools, such as semiotics, the framework for my map image analysis. The investigation of colour, shapes, symbols, and text on maps of Third-Republic Paris help uncover underlying themes of modernity, stability, ease of movement, and growth. There are also benefits to be gained from working with maps. The visual nature of the medium has the potential to draw a reader’s eye much more effectively than pages and pages of black and white script. Beyond discourse, this chapter also investigates the changing role of the French state in the history of cartography. With a population that could more readily access and understand maps as the Third Republic progressed, cartography helped foster the growing field of French urbanism and planning. Furthermore, the government shifted from presenting what it had accomplished in Paris throughout the Third Republic to planning and managing its growth and state cartography needed to adapt. An investigation of historic cartographic colour printing techniques will show how this is done and support this book’s map analysis.

A New Way of Seeing Paris

This chapter examines the century-long evolution of the Dépôt de la Guerre’s Carte d’état-major and subsequent Service géographique’s Carte de France. I focus more specifically on the army’s 1906 ‘Paris’ sheet (feuille XXIII_14), which documented the capital city within the greater Seine department. As the Dépôt de la Guerre became the Service géographique de l’armée, it decided to abandon the outdated état-major map for a new Carte de France. The Service géographique needed not only to portray the nation accurately, but do so in a manner that most citizens could understand. So even simple choices such as font and colour had significant impact on how people viewed and understood the national terrain. This Paris sheet was not only one of the best-recognized sheets from the series, it also presented the army’s, and by default the government’s, comprehensive view of the growing capital city, Feuille XXIII_14 served as part of the larger introduction to the nation of the new modified état-major that the Service géographique would be user-friendly and commercially viable. No longer portrayed by Alphand’s 1889 ‘Opérations des voiries’ as the isolated bourgeois ‘island,’ greater Paris has now breached the wall, fills the Seine department, and overflows into surrounding department.