Tag Archives: Paris

library, special collections

Eugene Atget

Atget, Eugene. Atget Photographe de Paris. With a preface by Pierre Mac-Orlan. New York: E. Weyhe, [1930].

Abbott, Berenice and Eugene Atget. The World of Atget. New York: Horizon Press, 1964.

A couple of years ago, I had the chance to visit MoMA to see the Cindy Sherman retrospective. I remember feeling overwhelmed by both her work and the crowds in the gallery. So I wandered away to explore the other exhibits and discovered a second one on photography: Eugene Atget: “Documents pour artistes”. Everything about the Atget exhibit felt different. I was lost in his photographs and captivated by his views of Paris.

Today, I discovered that the Architecture and Planning Library has two books on the works of Eugene Atget (1857-1927). The first is a collection of 96 plates with an introduction written by Pierre Mac-Orlan, housed in Special Collections; the second is by Berenice Abbott with 180 plates and is part of our circulating collection. Both were published after his death.  Abbott  writes of him:

Though he had not received the material rewards he merited and which  might have kept him going for a longer time, his infinite pains were in the end, at least, rewarded by that monument, his immortal work. He will be remembered as an urbanist historian, a genuine romanticist, a lover of Paris, a Balzac of the camera, from whose work we can weave a large tapestry of French Civilization. Yet perhaps his most haunting photographs show simply a plow in a field near the city, a crop of wheat, or one of the trees he loved so well. (Abbott, pg. xxxi)

Comparing the reproductions in the two works, I was struck by the differences of the sepia toned photographs (1930) versus the black and white (1964) in terms of both quality and emotions produced in the viewer. Additionally, some of the photographs are cropped differently. These variations led me to wonder, which is the more authentic photograph.

library, special collections

Le Nouvel Opéra de Paris

Garnier, Charles. Le nouvel Opéra de Paris. Paris: Ducher, 1878-1881.

The recent transfer of Charles Garnier’s (1825-1898) Le nouvel Opéra de Paris from the Alexander Architectural Archive to the Architecture and Planning Library adds an additional copy of this beautiful title to the library’s special collections. Issued in parts between 1878 and 1881, this publication on the Palais Garnier originally encompassed two volumes of text, two folios of engraved plates, and four atlases of photographs. Blake Alexander’s library only includes one portion of the whole but, luckily, that portion is the folio of twenty sumptuous chromolithographs illustrating the luxurious interior decoration.

Garnier began work on his magnificent Neo-Baroque-inspired building in 1860 (at the young age of 35) when he entered a competition to design a new home for the Académie Nationale de Musique. After winning fifth prize out of 170 entrants in the first stage of the competition, Garnier’s submission for the second phase was ultimately selected for its “rare and superior qualities in the beautiful distribution of the plans” and “the monumental and characteristic aspect of the facades and sections.” Construction began shortly thereafter, although the building would not be completed for another fourteen years due to construction setbacks and the Franco-Prussian War. When the opera house was finally inaugurated in 1875, the lavish gala performance was attended by all of Europe’s most prestigious monarchs.

The first volume of Le nouvel Opéra de Paris was published in 1878 to both celebrate and defend Garnier’s architectural designs. The volume of chromolithographs followed in 1881 and depicts the delicate marbles, frescoes, mosaics, colored tiles, gold sculptures, ornate paintings, and curtains, as well as the ornamentation of the grand staircase.

Library of Congress call number: Coming Soon!

library, special collections

Plan de Turgot

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Bretez, Louis. Paris au XVIIIe siècle; Plan de Paris en 20 planches dessiné et gravé sous les ordres de Michel-Étienne Turgot, prévôt des marchands. Commencé en 1734, achevé de graver en 1739. Levé et dessiné par Louis Bretez. Paris: A. Taride, [1908?].

Bretez, Louis, André Rossel, and Michel-Etiene Turgot. Le Plan de Louis Bretez dit Plan de Turgot. Paris: Éditions les Yeux ouverts, [1966?].

Recently, the Architecture and Planning Library took possession of several books, that were originally housed in the Alexander Architectural Archive. These books, formerly owned by the late Blake Alexander, were transferred to the library’s special collections in order to allow greater access to students and researchers alike.

Two of the books, officially titled Paris au XVIIIe siècle; Plan de Paris en 20 planches dessiné et gravé sous les ordres de Michel-Étienne Turgot, prévôt des marchands and Le Plan de Louis Bretez dit Plan de Turgot, represent different twentieth century facsimiles of a the same publication, Le Plan de Turgot. Le Plan de Turgot, a detailed bird’s-eye view of Paris, is one of the most famous urban maps ever created. Commissioned by the prévôt des marchands de Paris, Michel-Étienne Turgot (1690-1751), in 1734, the map was realized by Louis Bretez over the course of five years. Bretez, a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture who specialized in architectural perspective, was given free reign to enter Paris’ mansions, houses and gardens in order to capture every building, window, tree, shadow and park in exhausting (and accurate!) detail. The completed map, consisting of twenty pages that could be assembled into a massive display of the first eleven modern-day arrondissements, was engraved by Claude Lucas and published in 1739. Lucas’ original plates are kept by the Chalcographie du Louvre where they could still (theoretically) be used today for printing.

Of the two reproductions, Paris au XVIIIe siècle, is the oldest. This book was published circa 1908 by Alphonse Taride, a Paris based publisher who specialized in maps, tourist guides, histories, and pocket plans of France. The other facsimile, Le Plan de Louis Bretez dit Plan de Turgot, is much newer having been published circa 1966 by Éditions les Yeux ouverts.

Library of Congress call numbers: -F- 912.4436 B755P and -F- 912.4436 B755P 1966.