The Paris of yesteryear
It is a very classic public bench, with double seat and bottle-green cast iron base, that auctioneer Christophe Lucien put on sale on May 18 in Drouot. This type of foundation saw the light of day in the wake of the transformations carried out from 1853 to 1870 by the prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann. Charged by the latter to create the new street furniture, the engineer Adolphe Alphand and the architect Gabriel Davioud then designed newsstands, information columns, fountains and benches which end up symbolizing the eternal city in the eyes of tourists. A sign of his capital sympathy, the seat inspires Georges Brassens to sing Lovers of public benches.
Surprise buyers
Rarely has a bench been talked about at this point. It is because its sale has unleashed the anger of some Parisians, grouped under the hashtag #saccageparis, at war against the policies of Anne Hidalgo. Unconvinced by the “manifesto for a new Parisian aesthetic” by Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy mayor of Paris, the latter protest, in particular, against the gradual replacement of old street furniture by other seats, supposedly more suited to the new ones. uses. Under the hashtag #reparerparis, a pot was launched on May 5 to buy back “the Davioud bench” and reinstall it in Paris. A gesture that pleased the owner of the object: an hour before the auction, he sold it by mutual agreement for 1,200 euros to the organizers of this subscription.
A lost heritage
How did this seat, which once belonged to the City of Paris, end up at the Saint-Ouen flea market, where its ex-owner bought it? Hard to say. Legally, the city can sell its street furniture, recalled Le Figaro in its May 3 edition, specifying that it sold elements in 2018 on the specialized platform Agorastore. The auctioneer Christophe Lucien also confides that the Town Hall “Began to disperse it in the 1930s”, specifying that we can find “Street lamps by the hundreds at second-hand shops”. At Anne Hidalgo’s office, we are assured that “The City gives up its heritage very little. Public benches are reused after restoration, and metal furniture is sold for scrap, promoting reuse as soon as possible ”.
A growth market
The previous “Davioud bench” sold in March 2019 in Drouot was sold for 2,000 euros. This came from the collection of a lover of the Paris of yesteryear, Roxane Debuisson, reputed to have torn from the destruction of the “thirty glorious” old signs, bus stops, so many testimonies of the small urban heritage of the XIXe century stored over the years in his vast apartment on Boulevard Henri-IV. A highly publicized sale whose results had exceeded expectations – a sign of a manufacturer of supplies for cafes and bistros had then been awarded for 38,750 euros -, even giving rise to some pre-emptions from the Carnavalet Museum, specializing in the history of Paris .