Cité Napoléon

Behind the unassuming entrance at fifty-eight to sixty rue de Rochechouart sits the Cité Napoléon, a complex defined by its soaring, light-filled central atrium covered by a vast glass roof. Built between eighteen forty-nine and eighteen fifty-one by architect Marie-Gabriel Veugny, this site was the first attempt in Paris to provide planned, hygienic housing for the working class. It was commissioned by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who aimed to improve the living conditions of laborers in a rapidly industrializing city.