Charles Garnier’s History of Housing at the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris
As the geological, prehistorical, and archaeological sciences converged in nineteenth-century France, scientific debates arose concerning the origins and development of humanity in light theories of evolution and human migration. French architects of the time–already primed for discussions of the “primordial” or the “primitive–took an interest, yet little research has explored this intersection. This essay addresses how these architects brought evolutionary thinking and archaeological methods to bear on architectural history, with special attention on the use of the retrospective display. Specifically, this research examines Charles Garnier’s “Histoire de l’Habitation” exhibition for the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, which was purported to represent the entire history of domestic architecture, and its collaborative explanatory text–the Habitation humaine (1892). Garnier arranged his forty-four houses, “picturesquely,” at the feet of the newly-built Eiffel Tower with the assistance from Rubé, Chaperon, and Jambon, decorative painters of the new Opéra. Each house represented a period and nation (or race) and demonstrated unique picturesque qualities. The manner in which Garnier classified the houses engaged a philosophy of history that labeled certain races as “non-historical” due to, in great part, the temporary nature of their dwellings. Counter to this historical trajectory, the exhibition’s visual narrative necessitated the inclusion of even the impermanent dwellings, while it argued for a new theory of the picturesque. As such, this paper argues that Garnier’s project relied on opposing, yet complementary, connotations of the “ephemeral” to draft a progressive history of architecture.
Eldra-Dominique Walker is an architectural historian whose dissertation examines the theme of the “primitive” in nineteenth-century French architectural thought and practice. She received the support of the Bourse Jeanne Marandon from the Société de professeurs français et francophones d’Amérique (SPFFA), the Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship from Harvard University, and the Pforzheimer Fellowship from the Harvard Library. More broadly, Modern European Architecture (1750-1950) is her primary field, and her additional research interests include transnational histories, architectural literature, intersections between race and architecture, history and theory of architectural ornament, and the theory and practice of architectural preservation.
Currently, she is a lecturer and principal advisor to the Master of Design / Historic Preservation Program for the Department of Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Additionally, she was the Nettie Seabrooks Graduate Curatorial Intern in European Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where she assisted museum curators with an upcoming exhibition entitled “Color of Faith.” Eldra has taught courses at the GSD in Western Architectural history and theory, from the Renaissance to the present. Before coming to Harvard, Eldra was an architectural design reviewer in the District of Columbia Office of Planning. Eldra has an MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania and a BS from Morgan State University.