Michal Chudner, year 1, 2021

The language of the square: Twice invented Place Vendome First was an alphabet. A stone was set upright, and that was a letter.

Victor Hugo, This Will Kill That

Submitted by Michal Chudner

Tutors Dorette Panagiotopoulou Claire Potter (Writing Center)

“Architecture is a system of writing”1 writes Victor Hugo in Notre-Dame de Paris. Since the earliest times, people grounded their memories in what was most visible and durable to not risk losing them. And when you observe people existentially hold on to a place, and when it becomes the apex of revolt, when people return to it to build and destroy, to terrestrially write and erase, then you perhaps see clearly the human need to stamp an immortal message in a granite book.

The second half of the 17th century marked the end of medieval France’s era of glory. It is in this time when Place Vendome was built, initially to praise King Henry IV. France went through a series of revolutions, wrapped around questions of national value and identity, as a great political and social awakening. Paris, just as the french people, was torn and inflamed and the Place became gradually a refined space of conflict.

In this essay I will demonstrate the physical particularity of Place Vendome, namely its dialectic tension between verticality and horizontality. I will then try to show that the Place’s spatial specificities created the conditions which enabled the dramatic column demolition on May 16, 1871 by the Paris Commune, transforming Place Vendome from an elite-imperial space to one which belongs to the people. This means establishing the square’s physical significance: it’s shape, name, directionality, as well as it’s points of entrance and exit.

Place vendome, 1907, column cutted.

In order to understand the evolution of Place Vendome it is necessary to go back to the birth of public space in Paris. The transition of France to a modern nation state is examined in Maria S. Guidici’s research in ‘The city as a project’(2001, Delft). Until King Henri IV detached religion from politics in the 16th century, spaces which were to serve the common proletariat were either privately owned or owned by the church. Thus, by granting religious freedom, a distinction between the public and private realm was created and the republic became the guardian of civil peace2. The newly introduced secular space allowed for the emergence of the public sphere, and marked the beginning of the notion of the public as a collective entity that is able to reflect upon itself, define and claim it’s aspirations. However, the political and spatial systems of that time were far too hierarchically structured to acknowledge the people 1 Hugo, Victor, Notre-Dame de Paris This Will Kill That, p. 193 2 Guidici, Maria S. The street as a project, Delft, 2001, p. 183

as a legitimate actor in the city’s fabric. It is in this time that a new architectural language, namely, the architecture d’accompagnement, emerged with an aim to shape the shared spaces in the city to be coherent and consistent through a definition of spatial vocabulary. And so, architecture d’accompagnement became a tool in the hands of the republic to restrict the public with the pretext of taking care of the common wealth.

Approaching Place Vendome in the 19th century, one shifts between proportions. Suddenly, the width of the open space turns five times broader. Trying to re-orient, the gaze adjusts to the new dimensions, it wanders sideways to meet the enclosing walls which share the same facade; an arcade stretches between columns arrayed as a colonnade along the ground floor, and on top two-floors-high pilasters, projecting from the wall, create a rhythm on its surface. Scanning the surroundings, the eye hits a colossal pedestal.

Then, it travels up and down on the forty two meters tall column modeled after the Trajan column in Rome, standing high on top. The column was first erected by Napoleon to celebrate France’s military victory of the imperial army on a site formerly occupied by a statue of Louis XIV. Winding around the stone core of the pillar, the circular storytelling shows the major events of the Battle of Austerlitz, 1806. Cannons and other artillery from Russian and Austrian battle fields were melted to create a 280 meter-long frieze.

The column and the statue on its top were subject to constant and rapid changes, between the periods of revolution and the third republic. It had been “rewritten” under the restoration by the removal of the bronze statue of Napoleon, which was melted to recreate the King Henri IV, and by the placement of a white Bourbon flag instead3.

It is of interest to understand how the column, a first and foremost physical element, mediates between form and function and how the column of Place Vendome became so charged with meaning to successfully evoke radical emotions that led to its wrecking. The sole column found in the center of Place Vendome touches on one of the most fundamental questions about the nature of the column and it’s versatile role between function and aesthetics. While in antiquity the tectonic quality of the column was its primary aspect, used as the structural core of orders in Greek temples, during the Renaissance the pilaster introduced a differentiation between form and content. The pilaster kept the column’s shape yet neglected its function. In his essay on Leon Batistta Alberti’s approach to antiquity in relation to architecture, Rudolf Wittkower wrote, “The pilaster is the logical transformation of the column for the decoration of a wall. It may be defined as a flattened column which has lost its three-dimensional and tactile value”4.

Supposedly, the evolution of the vertical shape suggests that it can stand for other purposes but being a constituent element. In Alberti’s discussion on ornaments in Momus he states that “The principle ornament in all architecture certainly lies in the column”5. Presumably, what makes a building memorable is the uniqueness of its facade which is often achieved by the changing array of columns and arcades ,a visual articulation of the building’s internal division and usages. The column is thus, according to Alberti, the element that makes the building readable6. Alberti associates communicative features to the column that fix its superiority on other architectural elements which are incapable of intellectual delivery.

Therefore, he recognizes the column as an individual entity that is not dependent on its initial functional pursuit as a mere supportive element. Arguably, the tectonic definition can be replaced by narration. So, the ability of the column to absorb narratives and reflect back meanings turn it to an essential instrument in the story-teller’s hands.

Place Vendome was named after César de Bourbon, the duke of Vendome town and son of King Henri IV, who lived in Hotel de Vendôme in the square. The French word Place itself reveals the dual root of the social apparatus the square stands for. Place comes from the Greek word platús (πλατύς) which indicates broad herds, spread over a wide space and the descriptive adjective ‘flat’7. Herds are a group of animals kept together as a livestock, controlled and taken care by one person. Arguably, before impling on a specific form of architecture for people, the idea of the Place (square) indicated the ability of one to possess the crowd, and the territory occupied by this act, which in many cases was characterized with a flat and wide landscape. Planned and built from above, Place Vendome acted as an arena where the 3 Smith, Kevin C, Victor hugo and the Vendome Column, French Forum, 1996, p. 152 4 Wittkowe, Rudolf, Alberti’s Approach to Antiquity in Architecture, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1940, p. 3 5 The Architecture of Leon Btista Alberti’s in Ten Books, London, 1755.

6 Guidici, Maria S. The street as a project, Delft, 2001, p. 191 7 Liddell and Scott lexicon.

negotiation between individuals and collectivity took place, it is where some wanted its exploitation whereas others called out for its social value and right. In the period preceding the column strike, the enclosed territory of Place Vendome marked a sterile space for high class people that did not question the ruler’s authority and therefore, had no room for marginalized features of society within it. Spatially, Place Vendome was flat and open yet its operation during that time was very much hierarchical. It still belonged to the noble and the bourgeois.

Referring back to the dual character of the square, it is suggested that a “reading” of the Place Vendome reveals it as a flexuous space where horizontality as well as verticality coexist with no contradiction. This is to emphasize that the following description regarding the horizontality of Place Vendome is not aimed in replacing the previously analysed vertical aspect of it and that from now on and throughout this paper the two aspects will be constantly compared and contrasted.

Basic yet not obvious is Place Vendome’s capacity to inhabit a large group of people. The overall typology of Paris consists of dense buildings varying in shape and height. Thus, when in the street, the Vendome This spatial condition allows only a limited far extending long gaze is blocked by screensPlace of facades. understanding of space, it also directs towards a predefined path and prevents the gathering of large groups of people. Contrarily, the square has a notable horizontal impression, characterized with flat and broad typology, the surroundings evolve on the eye level. Therefore, something happening far away can be seen from a distance, in this way people can be invited, or on other occasions alerted, in relation to the specificity of the event and their free will. In its field-like space, the square acknowledges the equal need of all to perceive and engage with it according to their individual experience and perception. Therefore, the Place is emancipatory.

It is perhaps the right moment now, when the exceptionality of the open space in the city is clearer, to imagine Place Vendome fully crowded. As it was an infrequent moment of togetherness in Paris of 1871, a climatic build-up towards redemption was sensed in the air. The electrifying crowd energy influenced the behaviors and thought processes of both the individual crowd members and the crowd as an entity.

Presumably, the personal motivation blended into the crowd’s intention which was focused on the one and only element that could be spotted around- the accentuated Vendome column. The column is a vertical interruption in a horizontal field. An observation of the movement in this spatial organization perhaps reveals the political and social intention in placing a column right in the middle between two aligned openings (refer to the plan). And so true is this that the square is ‘mirrored’, the mirror plain cuts through the column and sets an almost symmetrical space. This condition has two spatial outcomes; firstly, as at the entrance of Place Vendome, it is impossible to see the facing opening, so the space appears hermetically closed. Secondly, one has to circumnavigate in order to move from one opening to the other. In this way, the directionality is abrupted and the individual as well as the whole crowd are again restricted by the vertical presence. Unavoidable it is to note that it happens not only at the center of the field but also around it. Arrayed as a colonnade, are multiple smaller columns that echo the contradictory abruptive experience of the large central pillar. Hence also when walking through the colonnade, the tension between limitation and allowance is allegedly sensed.

1871 Vendome square was a home to numerous demonstrations and rallies by those who opposed the political and cultural hegemony. One of the most spectacular actions was the symbolic demolition of the Vendome column by the Paris commune. Since the communards were above all against social regimentation, the column, being read as an enduring icon of French might and a monument of imperialism, was subject to despise. The high and vertical column had a physical as well as conceptual prominent expression. Physically, the sky-pointing element which was placed in the center of the square’s flat surface blocked the view, forcing a bypass. Conceptually it was a still and solid reminder of the preferable strong individual over the common people. Bourgeois over proletariat, monarch over the people, France over its rivals. Therefore, the column strike by the socialists communards was an anti hierarchical gesture8, both physically and conceptually, which aspired to extend principles of association - a horizontal moment.

The strike of the column marked the second birth of Place Vendome as a public space. One that affiliates broadly and is controlled by the people.

Place Vendome bears an oath and prophecy of constant change. This will be a monument of collected memories. Of order and destruction. Of military and politics. Success, failure and hope. Inscriptions breath life into this ceaseless space that holds the truth of the both sides, choreographed between the vertical and horizontal. Connecting earth and sky, the Vendome column transcends the past and present through its axis, within the reader it exists.

Bibliography - Hugo, Victor, Notre-Dame de Paris, This Will Kill That.

- Guidici, Maria S. The street as a project, Delft, 2001.

- Smith, Kevin C, Victor hugo and the Vendome Column, French Forum, 1996.

- Wittkowe, Rudolf, Alberti’s Approach to Antiquity in Architecture, Journal of the Warburg and Cour tauld Institutes, 1940.

- The Architecture of Leon Btista Alberti’s in Ten Books, London, 1755.

- Liddell and Scott lexicon.

- Ross, Kristin, The emergance of public space, University of minnesota, 1988.

8 Ross, Kristin, The emergance of public space, University of minnesota, 1988, p.5