Welcome on: Place des Vosges
With the coming of the Renaissance, Paris was remodeled with space in mind. Big squares and mansions for the "bourgeois"; the old medieval streets and gothic architecture could not be easily forgotten; you can still see old wood beam houses and the castle-like buildings with French style gardens. The Marais is a chic and fashionable place for antiques and shopping. See the old wall which enclosed Paris in the 11th century and have a picnic at the symmetrical Place des Vosges square. Lined with its mansions in red brick and white stone walls and high rooftops, this area is where Victor Hugo used to live.- - -
In the 12th century, the order of the temple cleared the marsh lands located to the north of the Philippe Auguste wall.
Beginning in the 16th century, but mostly after the creation of the royal square (later the Vosges square) by Henri IV in 1605, the aristocracy built beautiful houses there.
The move from the royal residence to the Louvre then to Versailles marked the beginning of the decline of the marshes, the high society preferred, more or less the districts ( faubourgs ) of saint Honore and Saint Germain.
In the 19th century, the marshes became more and more populated with industries and production. The city planning regulations by Haussmann enforced regulations that tried to progressively make the old streets larger and wider. But the number of old buildings that had not been destroyed made most streets quite irregular.
At the turn of this century, the Jewish quarter moved in around the Rosiers street which took in many arrivals from central europe and completed the woven structure of small artisans in the quarter. But the buildings of the marshes were hardly maintained, even the beautiful houses were disfigured by the warehouses and adventitious workshops.
In 1969, andré Malraux made the marshes the first ‘protected sector’ by applying the law of protection of the country’s heritage. This brought about another social mutation of the quarter. Many workshops had diminished, the middle class and the performance artists plus the gay community moved in with their multicolored flags that they hung up around the sainte croix de la bretonnerie street.
Today, the marshes have rediscovered their mansion houses but have lost the artistic life that once existed there which some regret bitterly. On Sundays, the clothing and decoration shops attract a large crowd especially around Francs-Bourgeois street.