The Historic Building in the Modernized City: The Cathedrals of Paris and Rouen in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Among the most ambitious and comprehensive projects for urban modernization in the nineteenth century was that of Paris where the prefect of the Department of the Seine, Baron Georges- Eugène Haussmann, under the auspices of the Second Empire of Napoleon III, engaged in a thorough-going program of demolition, street replanning, and reconstruction. Although much of the earlier fabric of Paris was destroyed, the major medieval monuments were largely preserved. This article considers the question of how preserved buildings, especially cathedrals, functioned in renovated cities and takes as its case studies Paris and Rouen. Like Paris, Rouen was a rapidly expanding economic center during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and was similarly reworked urbanistically. It too had a major medieval cathedral to be reckoned with. As this article demonstrates, the ways in which these cathedrals could and should represent the national past were the subject of considerable debate through the nineteenth century.