Paul from Paris

The city of Paris gave an award to Henri Adolphe Auguste Delgane for one of the best building façades built in 1906.

I love this building, because to my eyes, it’s a poor man’s building set in a rich man’s neighborhood. Put differently, it’s a building that I find democratic or egalitarian.

Viewed from the street, the corner building is modest compared to its neighbors. It’s made mostly of brick. The ground floor has some boutiques but otherwise keeps quiet.

What makes this building special? What makes it stand out?

Two points come to the mind of this spectator.

First, the architect puts creative use of stone and sculpted elements a few floors above street level.

Second, the architect reserved his most exuberant treatment for the building’s corner. Delgane departs from the neighborhood convention (corners at a 90° angle) with a rounded corner, with large windows and balconies on upper floors.

sober storefronts

corner

facade details

5 rue de Luynes

“Finally, we’ll describe the charm of detail, of invention, of inspiration from nature for the sculpted elements that seduced all of us in an apartment building on the rue de Luynes, by the architect Pradelle.”

These were the remarks made by the jury when it chose Pradelle and his building at 5 rue de Luynes as having one of the six priezwinning facades in Paris for the year 1904.

Pradelle’s building looks typically Parisian, Haussmannian. Nothing makes it stand out from its neighbors, in a quiet part of the 7th arrondissement.

Pradelle’s inventiveness lies principally in his use of decoration, especially vegetal and floral motifs. The ironwork of the building door signals or echoes these motifs.

floral motif; "swastika" motif unfortunate in hindsight

199 bis, bd St-Germain

Compared to the exuberance of Lavriotte’s apartment house on the avenue Rapp, Pasquier’s building at 199 bis boulevard Saint-Germain looks sedate.

The city of Paris awarded prizes for the facades of both buildings in 1901. What is it about Pasquier’s stately and low-key building that pleased the jury?

I have a couple of hypotheses; right or wrong, they underscore what makes this building special:

• Pasquier’s boulevard Saint-Germain building has a door. A real door, made of heavy ironwork, framed by stonework. As the century wore on, Paris architects seem to have forgotten about doors. Post-war buildings are especially egregious offenders in this respect, as they often have swinging glass panes as doors.
  There’s glass in the entry to Pasquier’s building, but it separates the entry from the courtyard. It features an art nouveau vegetal motif; it’s visible from the street but contributes to separating what’s in the building from the street outside.
• Pasquier respects the alignment, style of adjacent buildings, and a limited ornamental palette, while showing an extraordinary attention to detail. I’m especially taken by how the architect treated a north-facing, first-floor window. The window practically invites light in, and its canopy segues into a different treatment reserved to the second-floor balcony.

29 av Rapp (Paris)

“It’s not likely that Paris will witness a proliferation of this kind of construction.”

These were some of the selection jury’s comments when it awarded a prize in 1901 to Jules Lavriotte for the façade of the apartment house at 29 avenue Rapp, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.

Years ago, I had the good fortune to study art history, and the greater fortune to study this building. (Thank you, Martha Ward.) Befitting American students prone to afternoon somnolence, examination of the building focused on its entrance, most aptly described as labial, and at its sculpted door, with a phallic motif.

When I return to look at the building today, I see all of that, but I notice a lot more:

• Lavriotte plays with symmetry, or rather an absence of symmetry: the entry is off-center. A balcony on the third floor is centered, but the structure on either side of it is not; and examined vertically, one side of the facade has continuity, while the other has an interruption.
• Inside or outside? Lavriotte toys with facade viewers by alternating projections and indentations to the facade. The second, third, and fourth floors take flights of fancy, while floors above and below adhere to strict conventions.
• Rich art nouveau ornamentation is everywhere! As a repeat spectator, I’m especially drawn to the balcony on the third floor. There’s great attention to detail in the stonework, the iron grillings, ornamentation (with vegetal art nouveau themes) on the facade surface, and on the underside of the balcony, where there are colored ceremics, including a pair of cows.

entry

facade

balcony detail

A hundred years ago, the city of Paris held a yearly contest, brought to a halt by the first world war. The contest chose the six best building facades built in a given year.

This was a brilliant contest. By celebrating the facade –what a passerby sees, from the street– the city celebrated citizens as much as architects. By critiquing the facade, the city also addressed, indirectly, ongoing social patterns: urbanization; democratization; social classes and disparities of wealth; tradition versus novelty. Since the time of Baron Haussmann, Paris building facades were regulated strictly; architects in 1900 used a limited vocabulary in surprisingly innovative and challenging ways. By choosing six winners, the city allowed for diverse schools and interpretations to shine.

The spirit of these years and of this contest is captured by an observation from the city of Paris:

No one disputes that Paris is the most beautiful capital in the world. It owes this supreme glory not only to the magnificence of the Seine, its avenues, its parks, its gardens, its squares –whose aspects are in all points admirable– not only to the varity and number of its sumptuous monuments; but also to the felicitous line of its broad streets, which offer profound perspectives that give it the cachet of opulent originality, for which there is no equivalent, anywhere abroad.

The quotation is from a publication by the city of Paris, Les concours de façades de la ville de Paris, 1898-1905, published in Paris by the Librairie de la construction moderne (the quoted passage is on p. 23; the translation is mine). The passage struck me, partly because it’s so triumphantly chauvinist, but especially because it places the heart of what makes a city great and beautiful at and in the street.

Les concours de façades de la ville de Paris was published in two volumes, one for the years 1898-1905, the other for the years 1906-1912. I located and read a copy at the historical library of the City of Paris. The contest offered a public reward and recognition for architects, and I regret that the slender volumes have gone out of print. The contest reports, and the drawings or photographs of award-winning facades, are priceless. In the coming days, I’ll comment on some of the winners that especially marked me.