House 
Vol. VI 
and Garden 
August, 1904 No. 2 
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF THE 
CITY OF PARIS 
THE WORLD’S OBJECT LESSON IN CIVIC ART 
By Edward R. Smith, B.A. 
Reference Librarian , Avery Architectural Library , Columbia Uni-versity 
A LL the world goes to Paris to see the 
. city. It takes a high place among beau¬ 
tiful things in nature and holds it firmly, 
like a fine mountain or river or splendid 
country. The sensibilities respond in one 
case much as in another. Of no other city 
is this so strikingly true, 
except Venice; but Venice 
is fortuitous,spontaneous. 
She grew by the Adriatic 
as a flower grows by a 
brook. Paris is foreseen, 
and foreseen for centuries. 
A brilliant and powerful 
people has built for itself 
a city, to live in, to fight 
in, to make it a crucible 
in which passions and 
forces burn to ashes; and 
for all these uses and 
abuses it has consciously 
and by intention made it 
beautiful. The Parisian 
sees in one century what 
must come in the next and 
provides intelligently. 
The long study of genera¬ 
tion after generation of 
citizens profoundly train¬ 
ed in matters artistic, and 
filled with pride in, and love for their city, 
has made Paris a model to which Civilization 
looks whenever the art of creating fine towns is 
in question. The most important problems 
in civic design have been solved in Paris, and 
for the most part the solution has been ideal. 
To us especially is the teaching of Paris 
important. In no part of the world has the 
question of civic design assumed such weight 
as in America. Our cities have grown to 
immense size and wealth mainly on lines of 
least resistance ; and are, many of them, so 
monumentally inartistic that only the most 
drastic methods of cure seem to be worth 
while. Moreover, it is 
easy to believe that some 
revolutionary movement 
in the field of civic art may 
come in the near future. 
The strong artistic tend¬ 
encies of our people, the 
improved training to 
which they are gladlv sub¬ 
mitting, and increasing fa¬ 
miliarity with well built 
and beautiful cities, all 
tend toward such a result. 
Before we tear down our 
great towns and rebuild 
them, it should be inter¬ 
esting to study the great¬ 
est of all cities and see by 
what course it has arrived. 
Her environment has 
done little for the embel¬ 
lishment of Paris. Lrom 
the terrace of Saint-Ger¬ 
main en Laye one may 
see to the northward the sort of country 
which the Romans found on the site of 
the city—a fiat plain, rolling hills here and 
there, heavily wooded, of course, and a narrow, 
quiet river winding through. A cluster of 
islands filled the river where Notre-Dameand 
the Palais de Justice now stand. North of the 
Seine was a marsh which has given its name, 
ARMS OF THE CITY OF PARIS 
From ‘ ‘ Atlas des Anciens Flans de Paris 
Copyright, IQO4, —Henry T. Coates Co. 
49 
