Napoleon III style
The Napoleon III style was a highly eclectic style of architecture and decorative arts, which used elements of many different historical styles,and also made innovative use of modern materials, such as iron frameworks and glass skylights. It flourished during the reign of Emperor Napoleon III in France (1852–1871) and had an important influence on architecture and decoration in the rest of Europe and the United States. Major examples of the style include the Opéra Garnier in Paris by Charles Garnier (1862–71), the Bibliothèque nationale de France. and the Church of Saint Augustine (1860–1871). The architectural style was closely connected with Haussmann's renovation of Paris carried out during the Second Empire; the new buildings, such as the opera, were intended as the focal points of the new boulevards.
Architecture of Paris
The Second Empire also saw the restoration of the famed stained glass windows and structure of Sainte-Chapelle by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc; and extensive restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris. Later critics complained that some of the restoration was more imaginative than precisely historical.
The map and look of Paris changed dramatically under Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann. Haussmann demolished the narrow streets and crumbling medieval houses in the center of the city (including the house where he was born) and replaced them with wide boulevards lined by large residential buildings, all of the same height (Twenty meters to the cornice, or five stories on boulevards and four on narrower streets), with façades in the same style, and faced with the same cream-colored stone. He completed the east-west axis of the city center, the Rue de Rivoli begun by Napoleon, built a new North-south axis, Boulevard de Sébastopol, and cut wide boulevards on both the right and left banks, including the Boulevard Saint-Germain, Boulevard Saint-Michel, usually culminating in a domed landmark. if a dome was not already there, Haussmann had one built, as he did with the Tribunal de Commerce and the Church of Saint-Augustin.