1.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
2.
Hector Guimard
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Hector Guimard was a French architect, who is now the best-known representative of the Art Nouveau style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These rationalist ideas provided the basis for his form of Art Nouveau. In 1884 he was awarded three bronze and two medals at the school for his work. In 1885 he received awards in all of the competitions at École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs including four bronze medallions, five silver, and the schools Grande Prix dArchitecture. In 1885 Guimard began his studies at the École Nationale et Speciale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, later, in 1890, he was awarded a silver metal for modelled ornament at Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1891 Guimard became an Assistant professor in geometry, shadow. He was named a professor the year in 1892 of the girls section and was also named a professor of perspective in 1894. In 1893 he designed the lettering and street numbers for the Hotel Villa de la Réunion at 142 avenue de Versailles, Paris, the following year Guimard visited the Hôtel Tassel in Brussels, designed by Victor Horta, and the latters works was to become a profound inspiration. His first solo commission and breakthrough came in 1894, when he designed Castel Béranger at 14, rue La Fontaine, Paris, for Mme. Carried out over four years, he persuaded his client to abandon a more restrained design, in a single commission Guimard demonstrated how architecture and the industrial arts could be united in a single building to create a unified, modern scheme. The Castel Béranger made Guimard famous and he soon had many commissions and this approach culminated between 1909 and 1912 when he created his own home, Hotel Guimard where ovoid rooms contained unique pieces of furniture which are considered integral parts of the building. If the skylights favored by Victor Horta are rather absent in his work, Guimard made noteworthy experiments in space, but other buildings of his, like the splendid Nozal Hotel, employ a rational, symmetrical, square-based style like that of Viollet-le-Duc. The curious, inventive Guimard was also a precursor of industrial standardization and his greatest success here – in spite of some scandals – was his famous entrances to the Paris Metro, based on the ornamented structures of Viollet-le-Duc. The idea is taken up – but with less success – in 1907 with a catalogue of cast iron elements applicable to buildings, Artistic Cast Iron and his inimitable stylistic vocabulary suggests plants and organic matter, while remaining abstract. Flexible mouldings and a sense of movement are found in stone as well as wood carvings, Guimard created abstract two-dimensional patterns that were used for stained glass, ceramic panels, wrought iron, wallpaper or fabric. Despite Guimards innovations and talent, the press grew tired of him—not so much with his work and his relationship with the clergyman who commissioned him to build the Humbert de Romans Concert Hall became acrimonious by the time of its completion in 1901, and the clergyman left France. Within five years the magnificent concert venue was demolished, it is now known by photographs. A large number of his Paris Métro station entrances, including all of the large pavilions such as the one at Bastille, were demolished
3.
Art Nouveau
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Art Nouveau is an international style of art, architecture and applied art, especially the decorative arts, that was most popular between 1890 and 1910. A reaction to the art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, particularly the curved lines of plants. English uses the French name Art Nouveau, according to the philosophy of the style, art should be a way of life. For many well-off Europeans, it was possible to live in an art nouveau-inspired house with art nouveau furniture, silverware, fabrics, ceramics including tableware, jewellery, cigarette cases, artists desired to combine the fine arts and applied arts, even for utilitarian objects. By 1910, Art Nouveau was already out of style and it was replaced as the dominant European architectural and decorative style first by Art Deco and then by Modernism. Art Nouveau took its name from the Maison de lArt Nouveau, in France, Art Nouveau was also sometimes called by the British term Modern Style due to its roots in the Arts and Crafts Movement, Style moderne, or Style 1900. It was also sometimes called Style Jules Verne, Le Style Métro, Art Belle Époque, in Belgium, where the architectural movement began, it was sometimes termed Style nouille or Style coup de fouet. In Britain, it was known as the Modern Style, or, because of the arts and crafts movement led by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow, as the Glasgow style. In Italy, because of the popularity in Italy of designs from Londons Liberty & Co department store, in the United States, due to its association with Louis Comfort Tiffany, it was often called the Tiffany style. In Germany and Scandinavia, a style emerged at about the same time, it was called Jugendstil. In Catalonia the related style was known as Modernisme, in Spain as Modernismo, Arte joven, in Russia, it was called Modern, and Jugendstil, and Nieuwe Kunst in the Netherlands. Some names refer specifically to the forms that were popular with the Art Nouveau artists, Stile Floreal in France, Paling Stijl in the Netherlands. The new art movement had its roots in Britain, in the designs of William Morris. Early prototypes of the include the Red House of Morris. In France, the style combined several different tendencies, in architecture, it was influenced by the architectural theorist and historian Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, a declared enemy of the historical Beaux-Arts architectural style. For each function its material, for each material its form and this book influenced a generation of architects, including Louis Sullivan, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, and Antoni Gaudí. The French painters Maurice Denis, Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard played an important part in integrating fine arts painting with decoration, I believe that before everything a painting must decorate, Denis wrote in 1891. The choice of subjects or scenes is nothing and it is by the value of tones, the colored surface and the harmony of lines that I can reach the spirit and wake up the emotions
4.
Victor Horta
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Victor Horta was a Belgian architect and designer. John Julius Norwich described him as undoubtedly the key European Art Nouveau architect, Horta is considered one of the most important names in Art Nouveau architecture. With the construction of his Hôtel Tassel in Brussels in 1892-3, the biomorphic whiplash style that Horta promoted deeply influenced architect Hector Guimard who used it in projects in France and extended its influence abroad. In 1932 King Albert I of Belgium conferred on Horta the title of Baron for his services to the field of architecture, four of the buildings he designed have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Born in Ghent, Horta was first attracted to the profession when he helped his uncle on a building site at the age of twelve. Horta had a great interest in music since childhood and, in 1873, after being expelled for bad behaviour he joined the Department of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent instead. In 1878 Horta left for Paris, finding work with architect, there he was inspired by the emerging impressionist and pointillist artists, and also by the possibilities of working in iron and glass. In Brussels Horta built a friendship with Paul Hankar, who would also embrace Art Nouveau. Horta did well in his studies and was taken on as an assistant by his professor Alphonse Balat, together they designed the royal Greenhouses of Laeken, Hortas first work to utilise glass and iron. In 1884 Horta won the first Prix Godecharle to be awarded for Architecture, by 1885 Horta was working on his own and was commissioned to design three houses which were built that year. The same year he joined the Central Society of Belgian Architecture. Over the next few years he entered a number of competitions for public work and he focused on the curvature of his designs, believing that the forms he produced were highly practical and not artistic affectations. During this period, Horta socialised widely and, in 1888 and this ensured a stream of clients when he returned to designing houses and shops from 1893. 1919, Officer of the Order of the Crown,1920, Officer of the Order of Leopold. 1932, Created Baron Horta by Royal Decree, after introducing Art Nouveau in an exhibition held in 1892, Horta was inspired. Commissioned to design a home for professor Emile Tassel, he transfused the recent influences into Hôtel Tassel, ornate and elaborate designs and natural lighting were concealed behind a stone façade to harmonize the building with the more rigid houses next door. The building has since recognized as the first appearance of Art Nouveau in architecture. After receiving great acclaim for his designs, Horta was commissioned to complete many important buildings throughout Brussels
5.
Viollet-le-Duc
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Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc was a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive restorations of medieval buildings. Born in Paris, he was a major Gothic Revival architect and his works were largely restorative and few of his independent building designs were ever realised. Strongly contrary to the prevailing Beaux-Arts architectural trend of his time and he was the architect hired to design the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty, but died before the project was completed. Viollet-le-Ducs father was a civil servant living in Paris who collected books, his mothers Friday salons were attended by Stendhal and his mothers brother, Étienne-Jean Delécluze, a painter in the mornings, a scholar in the evenings, was largely in charge of the young mans education. Viollet-le-Duc was trendy philosophically, republican, anti-clerical, rebellious, he built a barricade in the July Revolution of 1830, instead he opted in favor of direct practical experience in the architectural offices of Jacques-Marie Huvé and Achille Leclère. During the early 1830s, a sentiment for the restoration of medieval buildings developed in France. Viollet-le-Duc, returning during 1835 from study in Italy, was commissioned by Prosper Mérimée to restore the Romanesque abbey of Vézelay and this work was the first of a long series of restorations, Viollet-le-Ducs restorations at Notre Dame de Paris with Jean-Baptiste Lassus brought him national attention. His other main works include Mont Saint-Michel, Carcassonne, Roquetaillade castle, Viollet-le-Ducs restorations frequently combined historical fact with creative modification. For example, under his supervision, Notre Dame was not only cleaned and restored but also updated, many of these reconstructions were controversial. Viollet-le-duc wanted what he called ‘a condition of completeness which never existed at any given time. This approach to restoration was particularly problematic when buildings survived in a mixture of styles, for instance, Viollet-le-Duc eliminated eighteenth-century additions to Notre Dame. Both his theory and his practice were strongly criticized on the grounds that only what had once been in place should be reconstructed. Basic intervention theories of historic preservation are framed in the dualism of the retention of the status quo versus a restoration that creates something that never existed in the past. John Ruskin was a proponent of the former sense, while his contemporary, Viollet-le-Duc. Viollet-le-Duc wrote that restoration is a means to reestablish to a finished state and this argument is still a current one when restoration is being considered for a building or landscape. In removing layers of history from a building, information and age value are also removed which can never be recreated, however, adding features to a building, as Viollet-le-Duc also did, can be more appealing to modern viewers. Throughout his career Viollet-le-Duc made notes and drawings, not only for the buildings he was working on and his notes were helpful in his published works. His study of medieval and Renaissance periods was not limited to architecture, in Henry Van Brunts translation, the Discourses on Architecture was published in 1875, making it available to an American audience little more than a decade after its initial publication in France
6.
Napoleon III
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Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the only President of the French Second Republic and, as Napoleon III, the Emperor of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I and he was the first President of France to be elected by a direct popular vote. He remains the longest-serving French head of state since the French Revolution, during the first years of the Empire, Napoleons government imposed censorship and harsh repressive measures against his opponents. Some six thousand were imprisoned or sent to penal colonies until 1859, thousands more went into voluntary exile abroad, including Victor Hugo. From 1862 onwards, he relaxed government censorship, and his came to be known as the Liberal Empire. Many of his opponents returned to France and became members of the National Assembly, Napoleon III is best known today for his grand reconstruction of Paris, carried out by his prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann. He launched similar public works projects in Marseille, Lyon, Napoleon III modernized the French banking system, greatly expanded and consolidated the French railway system, and made the French merchant marine the second largest in the world. He promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, Napoleon III negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier free trade agreement with Britain and similar agreements with Frances other European trading partners. Social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike and the right to organize, womens education greatly expanded, as did the list of required subjects in public schools. In foreign policy, Napoleon III aimed to reassert French influence in Europe and he was a supporter of popular sovereignty and of nationalism. In Europe, he allied with Britain and defeated Russia in the Crimean War and his regime assisted Italian unification and, in doing so, annexed Savoy and the County of Nice to France, at the same time, his forces defended the Papal States against annexation by Italy. Napoleon doubled the area of the French overseas empire in Asia, the Pacific, on the other hand, his armys intervention in Mexico which aimed to create a Second Mexican Empire under French protection ended in failure. Beginning in 1866, Napoleon had to face the power of Prussia. In July 1870, Napoleon entered the Franco-Prussian War without allies, the French army was rapidly defeated and Napoleon III was captured at the Battle of Sedan. The French Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris, and Napoleon went into exile in England, charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later known as Louis Napoleon and then Napoleon III, was born in Paris on the night of 20–21 April 1808. His presumed father was Louis Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. His mother was Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter by the first marriage of Napoleons wife Joséphine de Beauharnais, as empress, Joséphine proposed the marriage as a way to produce an heir for the Emperor, who agreed, as Joséphine was by then infertile. Louis married Hortense when he was twenty-four and she was nineteen and they had a difficult relationship, and only lived together for brief periods
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