A DESIGN THAT HIGHLIGHTS POWER

STRAIGHT STREET AND ROYAL MODEL

The imperious avenue de l'Opéra...

• Highlights the edifice as straight lines highlighted symbols of monarchy and as the avenue de Paris highlights Versailles: 

Snow on the Avenue de l'Opéra by Camille Pissaro, 1898 / zoom

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•  Was meant to connect the Opéra with the Tuileries and Louvre palaces, though the Tuileries burning has led to forgetting that tie:

  Web photo, no photographer named

• Remained the site of official parades until  World War I:

Place de l'Opéra adapts the monarchs' template:

• It is a public space toward which straight streets converge.

• Homogeneous architecture surrounds it.

• The edifice itself replaces the statue of the king.

Claude Abron

The Opéra is associated with Napoleon III

as Versailles is with Louis XIV.

Pamela Spurdon

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