Les Halles - vue générale du
quartier
A market place since the 12th century, Les Halles have been rebuilt and
enlarged several times to allow for the constant growth of the city of Paris.
Before the current, mostly subterranean structure, the much regretted Halles of
Baltard were in fact the 19th century architect's second attempt: Napoleon III
did not like his first stone buildings at all, and told his prefect Haussmann
that he wanted much lighter structures, nothing but "large umbrellas".
Haussmann, a school friend of Baltard passed on the message and thus helped
Baltard to get his second chance. He went on to create the iron structures that
lasted for about a century before they were destroyed in 1971. "A massacre and
an urbanistic crime" according to journalist and architecture critic Francis
Rambert (in "Paris", sous la direction de Gilles Plazy, Editions Flammarion
2003, ISBN: 2-0801-11655)