The Promenades of Paris: Alphand and the Urbanization of Garden Art, 1852-1871
Dr. Gideon Fink Shapiro (Dissertation, 2015)
Les Promenades de Paris (1867–71) site plan by Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand (1817–1891)
DISSERTATION
This study investigates a formative episode in the history of modern landscape architecture and public space design: the rapid creation of public parks, squares, and tree-lined thoroughfares in Paris between 1852 and 1870, the period of the French Second Empire, to form a series of interconnecting “promenades.” It seeks to identify continuities and innovations with respect to traditions of garden art, urban art, and engineering in France. It asks how a multi-disciplinary team of public servants, led by the engineer Adolphe Alphand, responded to the simultaneous demands of cultural and utilitarian necessities, and how the public received the new gardens. The research method consists primarily in interpretive analysis of archival and historic texts, design drawings, popular media accounts, art and literature, and physical landscapes.