IV.1.3. A DESIGN INCONCEIVABLE ELSEWHERE

 

MENU: 4.1.3. Design inconceivable elsewhere

THE "GRAND AXIS" PROCLAIMS INFINITE ROYAL POWER

It links the Louvre palace to the horizon, a layout that demolishing the rampart permits. One needs a helicopter to see it.

Claude Abron

The Grand Axis seen from the Tuileries gardens / zoom

    Lithograph of 1855, cover, Les Belles Heures des Champs-Elysées, 1855, by Marc Gaillard (Martelle Editions), n.d.

To partially grasp its length, view the Louvre palace from the other side of the river. 

Origins:

• The space that leads to the royal tombs. 

• The first straight street and first point of focus. 

• The innovations of Henri IV? (Please scroll down the page.)

In brief 

• Demolishing the city wall announced hegemony

• The Boulevards that replaced the rampart led to Versailles

• The larger arc looms over the route that leads to the royal tombs

• That arc announces three centuries of calamity...

• Now the arcs hover like ghosts over the traffic

Accounts often overlook the line

that one sees only from above.

But its political message

is a key to the European past,

and its adoption by future capitals

gives it planetary importance.

 

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Demolishing the city wall announced hegemony