Nineteenth-Century French Government Architectural Services and the Design of the Monuments of Paris

French nineteenth-century architecture was fundamentally different from contemporaneous Anglo-American building and from twentieth-century practice generally in that it was dominated by the government architectural services engaged in the rebuilding of monumental Paris. Essentially the profession and the government administration were one until at least 1890 and completely focused on this task. An unusually broad span of buildings was under government control—institutions like libraries, prisons, and hospitals; palaces; public monuments like the Chamber of Deputies and the Luxembourg; church architecture—as well as the restoration of historic buildings.