Boulevard Saint-Michel - Paris (France)
Boulevard Saint-Michel & Place Saint-Michel 26/09/2020 10h56
Boulevard, Place and Fontaine Saint-Michel in the soft September morning light.
Fontaine Saint-Michèl
One of the symboles of the second French Empire in Paris is this monumental fountain contructed between 1858 and 1860 in the 6ème arrondissement of Paris. Designed by the architect Gabriel Davioud.
The fontaine Saint-Michel was part of the great project for the reconstruction of Paris overseen by Baron Haussmann during the French Second Empire. In 1855 Haussmann completed an enormous new boulevard, originally called boulevard de Sébastopol-rive-gauche, now called Boulevard Saint-Michel, which opened up the small place Pont-Saint-Michel into a much larger space. Haussmann asked the architect of the service of promenades and plantations of the prefecture, Gabriel Davioud, to design a fountain which would be appropriate in scale to the new square. As the architect of the prefecture, he was able to design not only the fountain but also the facades of the new buildings around it, giving coherence to the square, but he also had to deal with the demands of the prefet and city administration, which was paying for the project. [ Wikipedia ]
Boulevard Saint-Michel - Paris (France)
Boulevard Saint-Michel & Place Saint-Michel 26/09/2020 10h56
Boulevard, Place and Fontaine Saint-Michel in the soft September morning light.
Fontaine Saint-Michèl
One of the symboles of the second French Empire in Paris is this monumental fountain contructed between 1858 and 1860 in the 6ème arrondissement of Paris. Designed by the architect Gabriel Davioud.
The fontaine Saint-Michel was part of the great project for the reconstruction of Paris overseen by Baron Haussmann during the French Second Empire. In 1855 Haussmann completed an enormous new boulevard, originally called boulevard de Sébastopol-rive-gauche, now called Boulevard Saint-Michel, which opened up the small place Pont-Saint-Michel into a much larger space. Haussmann asked the architect of the service of promenades and plantations of the prefecture, Gabriel Davioud, to design a fountain which would be appropriate in scale to the new square. As the architect of the prefecture, he was able to design not only the fountain but also the facades of the new buildings around it, giving coherence to the square, but he also had to deal with the demands of the prefet and city administration, which was paying for the project. [ Wikipedia ]