I am Baron Haussmann

I am Baron Haussmann – I gave you the Paris you see today.

Before I began, the centre of Paris had the same structure as it did in the Middle Ages; narrow, filthy interweaving streets, cramped buildings that impeded traffic flow and resulting in unhealthy, crowded conditions.  Napoleon III commissioned me from 1853-1870 to modernize Paris.  My restructuring of Paris gave the city its present form; its long, straight, wide boulevards with their cafés and shops determined a new type of urban scenario and have had a profound influence on the everyday lives of Parisians.  My boulevards established the foundation of what is today the popular representation of the French capital around the world, cutting through the old Paris of dense and irregular medieval alleyways into a more rationally-designed city with wide avenues and open spaces which extended outwards far beyond the old city limits.

I worked on everything; both in the centre of Paris and in the surrounding districts: streets and boulevards, regulations imposed on facades of buildings, public parks, sewers and water works, city facilities, and public monuments.  Boulevard Haussmann, one of the largest boulevards, is named after me.