Architecture Walks In Paris

Paris is full of extraordinarily famous monuments and museums, architectural wonders, and streets lined with beautiful facades. The oldest buildings in Paris are the first-century Roman Arènes de Lutèce and the Baths at Cluny, the largest Roman building in Northern Europe.  The newest Paris monuments may be in progress right now. Perhaps the best-known recent addition to Paris architecture is the Pyramid of the Louvre, which opened in 1989. Or maybe most famous is the Musée du quai Branly, which opened in 2006.

Even more astonishing than the many famous monuments, though, is the great beauty, variety, and historic significance of the more ordinary neighborhoods throughout the city. Just walking randomly, you can see vast numbers of impressive and fascinating facades, and you can peek into courtyards for a glimpse of more intimate Paris life. Locating typical examples of every-day architectural styles is challenging, since Paris is huge: the inner city of 2.2 million contains most of the interesting architecture. The vast surrounding suburbs have another 8.5 million residents.

Exploring the city: "Architecture Walks in Paris"
by Bert McClure & Bruno Régnier,
published in the 1980s.

One guide to finding interesting walks through the more obscure parts of the city is called "Promenades d'Architecture à Paris." The six maps with detailed explanations introduce you to a variety of architecture and engineering methods, to specific designers and architects, and to the distinctiveness of various Paris neighborhoods.

In the folder are six very informative maps of relatively obscure Paris areas.
Each one unfolds to a single page the size of a standard city map.

"Guimard et l'art nouveau" is a map showing where to find Art Nouveau buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is probably my favorite among these walks, as I am very fond of this style of art and architecture. 

The entire map, folded out. The reverse side is blank.

Hector Guimard (1867-1942) is probably best known for his design of the Art Nouveau metro entrances, which I documented on my previous posts about the Paris Metro and about Paris maps. Guimard designed many residential buildings in Paris including the facades, metal grilles and railings, interior details like staircases and wall decorations, and even furniture. These buildings, situated in the newly urbanizing parts of the city, were meant for upper middle-class and upper-class Parisians. As far as I know the current residents must be very wealthy, as the apartments are spacious and Paris real estate is very expensive.

Guimard's work, as well as that of other Art Nouveau creators, is on display in many museums in the US and Europe -- notably the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. These objects include furniture, lighting fixtures, textiles, and architectural features such as cast iron railings. A few museums in the US even own entire examples of Guimard's metro entrances, for example the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. It's fascinating to look at these museum pieces, but even more exciting to see the actual buildings that appear on the map.

More about the Guimard map and guide

On the east side of the Seine: finding buildings designed by Hector Guimard.
Each map has walking routes with numbers to indicate what to look for.

Locations of more Art Nouveau buildings around the Arc de Triomphe/l'Etoile.

Images of buildings by Hector Guimard and others.

From the Decorative Arts collection of the Musée d'Orsay:

The central panel of a large balcony, made in cast iron between 1905 and 1907.

Taken from a building on rue de la Fontaine. (Source)

The following photos are from various walks I took in the Passy and Auteuil neighborhoods during various visits to Paris in the 1990s. Paris is such a beautiful city!

This section of the fold-out map describes the work of Le Corbusier and locates the
Le Corbusier Foundation in the neighborhood covered by the map.

Visiting the Le Corbusier Foundation as suggested by the guide was my introduction to the work of the famous architect. I am still learning about the history of architecture in the twentieth century and how Le Corbusier fit into it.

A summary of the other five maps

"Fer et Verre autour de la Bourse." This map documents the 19th century use of  iron (fer) and glass (verre) in architecture -- a great advance in the engineering of large modern buildings, enabling major changes in design and size of structures. This style was characteristic of department stores such as the Galleries Lafayette and Printemps, both still in business near the Opera, as well as other buildings. The building that now houses the Musée d'Orsay is such a structure. It was originally a railroad station, built in 1900.

"Avec l'Autobus de petite ceinture." How to take the bus around the outskirts of Paris, and what to look for when you get there. I never actually followed this map.

"Ateliers à Montparnasse." Artists' studios around Montparnasse, now one of my favorite Paris neighborhoods.

"Habitat Social à Ménilmontant." A walk to see the various designs of low-cost government housing at Ménilmontant -- probably the most unusual subject for a tourist guide! Definitely off the beaten track. I wonder what the neighborhood is like now, as gentrification has utterly changed most of Paris.  When I was following this walk in 1990, a man wearing the clothes of a construction worker stopped me very politely and asked what motivated tourists to come to Paris, and in particular what interested me about his neighborhood. A hard question!

"Arts Déco à Passy et Auteuil" -- the Art Deco movement between the two World Wars created another important look characteristic of certain Paris neighborhoods.

... and many more guidebooks.

Quite a few other guides to Paris architecture have been published both before and after this one — many are listed on amazon.com. I chose to write about this particular guide because it's subject matter is so unusual, and because I have used it to discover very surprising places. I learned a great deal while exploring its various routes during the year I spent there in 1989-1990 and also on later visits. I’ve concentrated on one map today: perhaps I will add more pictures and information about the other five maps in a later blog post.

I will share this blog post with other bloggers at the online party "Paris in July" hosted by Tamara at the blog Thyme for Tea.  My blog post and original photos are copyright © 2020 by mae sander for mae food dot blog spot dot com.