The Paris of Henri IV: Architecture and Urbanism

The Louvre, the Place Royale (now the Place des Vosges), the Place and rue Dauphine,the Pont Neuf, and the Hôpital Saint Louis were part of a building program initiated by Henri IVthat would be unmatched in Paris for more than two centuries. Drawing on previously untappednotarial archives in Paris's Minutier central, Hilary Ballon provides a rich and original account ofthe crucial period between 1605 and 1610 when Paris was transformed from a medieval city decimatedby 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 themonarch's urbanism to his broader policy promoting domestic manufacturing, linking thecourt and commerce, and establishing Paris as the focal point of a unified French state.Ballonreveals that such works as the Place Royale, the first planned square in Paris, and the HôpitalSaint Louis, built to protect the city from the destabilizing effects of the plague, were the resultof an interactive process between architectural form, social forces, and political vision ratherthan reproductions of an unyielding royal idea. Setting aside the traditional view of the monarch'surbanism as self-glorification, of his monuments and squares as static icons, she sees the buildingsin the context of Parisian life, from their designs through construction to their use.Ballon thenshifts from a focus on the monuments to representations of Henri IV's Paris in maps, city views, andhistory books. She argues that the king's building program and centralizing policies initiated thedevelopment in France of a variety of topographical among these Jacques Du Breul's 1612history of Paris was the first to impose the city's topography as its organizing principle.HilaryBallon is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at ColumbiaUniversity.