the haussmannien block

georges-eugene haussmann was hired by napoleon III in the mid 19th century to 'modernise' paris. haussmann is remembered both as the man who destroyed old paris but also as the man who who created new paris. haussmann cut into paris introducing broad avenues in effort to create a cleaner and safer city more suite to the bourgeoisie, the predominant class of paris at that time.

"the block produced by the cutting of a star plan grids of the hausmannien networks was almost inevitably a triangular slice across the traditional paris block, which usually was rectangular." urban forms, phillipe panerai, 2004, pg18

this cutting of the large parisian block created very compact blocks intended to be filled bourgeoisie homes.

original parisian blocks were far denser than the compact hausmmannien block and were divided into an edge and an interior.

"the dense edge was directly connected with the street, understood as the place for exchange and as the presentation space controlled by rules. the interior of the block, on the other hand, was a zone at a distance from the street, cut off from it, which had the characteristics of a space that was not necessarily seen, i.e. hidden. it no more had the functions of public representation. it was malleable, transformable, marked by some loose rules, which contrasted with the strict rules on the public front." urban forms, phillipe panerai, 2004, pg25

The compact haussmannien block had reduced multi-functionality and excluded the workplace from the private residential block. These compact triangular blocks offered a perimeter which which was open to the streets and allowed for public activities to take priority. Due to the inability of the hausmmannien block to incorporate a variety of functions single-function blocks began to appear across the city.

Interestingly, parallels can be seen here between maccormac's idea of local and foreign transactions happening in the spitalfield design and the hierarchy of the traditional parisian block.