The Site Before 1897
The Parc des Princes was used as a place of relaxation, hunting and popular promenade by the king and the royal princes during the 18th century. During the first half of the 19th century, the Parisian bourgeoisie adopted these pleasures once reserved for the nobility. Purely natural until 1855, the site knew its first urban planning with the drilling of a road to make way for the future district of the Parc des Princes. It seems that the name "Parc des Princes" made its appearance at this time by taking the terms Route des Princes and Porte des Princes, in use since the 18th century. Le Parc was not part of Paris until the annexation of neighboring municipalities desired by Napoleon III in 1860, who straddled the territories of Paris and Boulogne-Billancourt. A station for scientific study called "Physiological Station of the Parc des Princes" was installed on the site in 1881, close to the existing Stade Roland Garros. Étienne-Jules Marey conducted research on Chronophotography. The institute was destroyed in 1979 to allow the extension of the Roland Garros stadium. Thus, the Parc des Princes was a vast space that was not limited to the few hectares of the current stadium.
Read more about this topic: Parc Des Princes
Famous quotes containing the word site:
“It is not menstrual blood per se which disturbs the imagination—unstanchable as that red flood may be—but rather the albumen in the blood, the uterine shreds, placental jellyfish of the female sea. This is the chthonian matrix from which we rose. We have an evolutionary revulsion from slime, our site of biologic origins. Every month, it is woman’s fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)