On This Day: 22nd June 1853 – Haussmann Appointed Prefect of the Seine
On this day in 1853, Georges-Eugène Haussmann was appointed Prefect of the Seine. His job was to modernise Paris, but within weeks, he began tearing it down. This was the beginning of a project to use the environment to teach citizens implicitly how to engage socially.
The Paris Haussmann inherited was a medieval city of narrow, winding alleyways, dark tenements, and crowded courtyards. It was a city shaped by centuries of improvisation, its layout was organic rather than organised, with its blurred boundaries developing naturally over a thousand years of steady expansion. It was a city known for revolution, and the memory of the barricades of 1848 was still raw. What seemed like disorderly planning carried deeper implications for the ruling elites at the time; it threatened the state itself.
Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann served as Prefect of the Seine between 1853-1870.
Haussmann’s solution was radical. A total restructuring of urban space. Over the next two decades, he would gut the medieval core of Paris and replace it with wide boulevards, central sight lines, expansive parks, uniform facades, and arterial avenues that opened the city to movement, commerce, and military control. The redesign introduced modern sewage systems, clean water access, gas lighting, and public parks; each a concrete improvement to the health and functionality of the city. Beneath the ambition and imperial vanity lies another layer, a layer of implicitness and suggestion. Haussmann’s Paris did not simply house people, it also set out to train them.
From its conception, Haussmann’s project was pedagogical, even if it never called itself that. It sought to shape a certain kind of citizen; one who moved through space predictably, and understood their place within civic society. This was not a classroom. There were no teachers, no desks, no curriculum pinned to a board. However there were lessons for citizens to take. This is closer to what educators later called a ‘hidden curriculum’: the implicit education in this case delivered through architecture, and the flow of daily life. Paris became like a whiteboard for state lessons on order and obedience.
What Did Haussmann’s City Teach?
Haussmann’s Paris became a script for social change. The uniform facades stretch in disciplined repetition and instill a sense that order is natural. Every line and symmetry suggests that there is correctness in conforming. The wide boulevards are straight and unbroken are both picturesque and ensure that citizens are always in sight. The visibility of citizens allows for accountability and reminds individuals that public life is lived under supervision. The flow of human activity replaced stagnation as the newly built city erased the dead ends and courtyards where mischief and disorder could barricade and fester. Instead movement was guided through broad, open avenues and sheltered arcades. Walking around Paris forces you to join a rhythm which is enforced through design, where even a leisurely stroll creates unison with the currents of the city. Everywhere the boulevards point towards monuments of power: the Arc de Triomphe, the Pantheon, the Palais Garnier; these guide you on a journey through a state sanctioned tour of the city’s history. Haussmann’s reforms provide lessons about how order and visibility combine with authority to influence daily life with public consent.
An aerial view of the arterial network of avenues of Paris leading to the Arc de Triumph.
A Hidden Curriculum of Bricks and Mortar
Education theorists speak of the hidden curriculum as the unspoken lessons schools transmit through timetables, seating charts, and institutional tone. But Haussmann’s Paris proves the physical environment has implicit lessons too. He managed to train the middle-class gaze. It wasn’t just about the space; but what kind of people should occupy it, and how. It taught that beauty was uniform, and that walking should always have a destination. Power was central to layout, it was not just a historical curiosity.
For us as educators, in our schools, just as in cities, the environment transmits values; sometimes more powerfully than the curriculum itself. A classroom arranged in rows facing a whiteboard teaches something different from one arranged in circles. Just as a corridor lined with student work invites ownership; a corridor lined with surveillance cameras suggests suspicion. Teachers may plan lessons with care, but the room teaches too. It communicates what kind of thinking is valued, who is expected to speak, and what kinds of movement are permitted. When desks are bolted down and clocks dominate the wall, a lesson in compliance is underway.
The hidden curriculum of space—the message embedded in layout, rhythm, and visibility—is just as potent as any textbook. Haussmann’s Paris reminds us that built environments shape not only movement, but mindset. So what does the architecture of our classrooms teach our students? Are we even paying attention to what they’re learning before a single word is spoken?
Designing Schools for Democracy
Haussmann’s redesign of Paris taught us that space governs behaviour. His boulevards imposed order, visibility, and legibility - not just for efficiency, but to assert control. Schools too carry a hidden curriculum in their walls. But what if we took Haussmann’s spacial intelligence and reoriented it towards democratic ideals?
In place of surveillance, we design for mutual visibility. Glass-walled classrooms, open staffrooms, shared learning zones - where transparency builds trust. Instead of controlling flow, we structure spaces that invite movement and autonomy: flexible thresholds, multipurpose corridors, and breakout zones for reflection and collaboration.
Clear signage and student-created maps give ownership to students and help every learner feel they belong to part of a community. Symbolism is no longer used to glorify the institution but to reflect the community - murals, memory walls, and multilingual artifacts express students’ own and collective identities.
If Haussmann built against rebellion, should a democratic school try to embrace it? Space can discipline - or it can empower. Another curriculum lives in the environment, and the schools of tomorrow must teach citizenship not just through content, but through form and freedom.
The City We Still Walk In
Even today, Haussmann’s influence is difficult to escape. His avenues are still there. His facades remain a model of how modern cities should look. But perhaps the most enduring lesson isn’t architectural at all but pedagogical.
Because what Haussmann understood is that environments do not just serve citizens, they shape them. And that shaping does not always happen . It does not always ask permission. It simply becomes the background of life—what feels normal, expected, unremarkable. But normal is never neutral. The street, like the school, is a place of instruction. And sometimes the lesson is in the bricks. On this day, Haussmann began building a city. But what he really built was a way of thinking, a way of moving, and a way of belonging. A curriculum of stone and brick.
Further Reading
Freemark, Y. et al. (2022) Housing Haussmann’s Paris: the politics and legacy of Second Empire redevelopment. Planning perspectives. [Online] 37 (2), 293–317.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/31/story-cities-12-paris-baron-haussmann-france-urban-planner-napoleon
