The Monuments Of Paris

From Notre-Dame to the Pompidou Centre, from St-Sulpice to the Louvre pyramid, this text provides an introduction to more than 500 of Paris's finest buildings. Exploring both familiar landmarks and lesser-known medieval streets and private houses, it should inspire regular and first-time visitors.

A survey of buildings and monuments of note in Paris, with drawings of interesting architectural features throughout the city, and over 200 maps for walking tours which take in all the major monuments and structures.

From Notre-Dame to the Quai Branly Museum, the monuments of Paris bear witness to all the eras the city has known and are so many landmarks for avid urban walkers. Taking to the heights, Arnaud Chicurel and Pascal Ducept provide a new perspective on these palaces, towers, arches, and prestigious squares. By seeking out unusual angles and exceptional lighting, they show us a whole new side of the City of Light we thought we knew so well.

The first volume in two centuries on Alexandre Lenoir's Museum of French Monuments in Paris, this study presents a comprehensive picture of a seminal project of French Revolutionary cultural policy, one crucial to the development of the modern museum institution. The book offers a new critical perspective of the Museum's importance and continuing relevance to the history of material culture and collecting, through juxtaposition with its main opponent, the respected connoisseur and theorist Quatremère de Quincy. This innovative approach highlights the cultural and intellectual context of the debate, situating it in the dilemmas of emerging modernity, the idea of nationhood, and changing attitudes to art and its histories. Open only from 1795 to 1816, the Museum of French Monuments was at once popular and controversial. The salvaged sculptures and architectural fragments that formed its collection presented the first chronological panorama of French art, which drew the public; it also drew the ire of critics, who saw the Museum as an offense against the monuments' artistic integrity. Underlying this localized conflict were emerging ideas about the nature of art and its relationship to history, which still define our understanding of notions of heritage, monument, and the museum.