I checked this book out from the library before my trip to Paris and found it incredibly interesting. I would LOVE to have this on my coffee table someday.

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Product Description

Between the years 1950 and 1972, when Paris was in the twilight of its classical period, pilot and photographer Roger Henrard (1900-1975) preserved the city he knew and loved from the seat of a single-engine American army surplus Piper cub. Henrard used a high-speed plate camera to systematically document the city from its outskirts to its center. His photographs show not only Paris's stations, museums, department stores, and housing projects but also its urban tissue and interconnections—the tight-knit medieval districts as well as the rectilinear geometry of the Haussmanian boulevards. Above Paris is Henrard's remarkable study of the urban landscape of Paris and its best-known monuments. Over 350 beautifully printed duotones, grouped by themes such as the course of the Seine, the main roads, the stations, and the neighborhoods of Paris give a clear overview of the city's layout. Maps at the beginning of each chapter further help orient the reader and together with detailed captions and essays by Jean-Louis Cohen make Above Paris a must for anybody interested in Paris or urban design.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1029199 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
Above Paris provides an intriguing perspective, to make you think aout the city in a different way. It's not a coffee table book: it's much more interesting than that. -- Royal Photographic Society, November 2007

A lavish compilation. . . . Thanks to Henrard's lens, you can see buildings closed to the public, such as Prefecture de Police on the Ile de la Cite, and once-beloved landmarks, such as the markets of Les Halles, which have long since disappeared. -- Men's Vogue, October 2006

From time to time, one reviews a book about photography that is a pleasure to look at and a pleasure to read. This is such a book. -- Choice, Feb. 2007

Informative captions accompany the book's 320 photographs... providing a detailed view of Paris at mid-century. -- The Architect's Newspaper, Dec. 11, 2006

Perfect for the wanderers on your gift list... chronicling the changing face of the metropolis as it spread through the countryside, swallowing villages. -- Edmonton Journal, Dec. 2, 2006

About the Author
Jean-Louis Cohen is an architect and professor of architectural history at the University of Paris and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

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Customer Reviews

PARIS IN BLACK AND WHITE
These gorgeous black and white images are so beautiful and vivid. These beautiful photo's shot from the fifties to the early seventies just jump off the page. You see some great Parisian buildings no longer extant, like Les Hales, or you see buildings like the Orsay train station in a state of disrepair before it was rescued and reinvented as the Orsay gallery. Paris is layed out so perfectly, it lends itself so well to arial photography. If you love Paris or appreciate amazing photography then you will want this in your collection. High recommended.

Google Earth above Paris before the internet

Roger Henrard (1900-1975) was an industrialist, pilot and photographer. He flew over Paris in a single-engine plane and took thousands of pictures, many of them incredible pictures. Henrard used a high-speed plate camera to systematically document the city. This book selects 350 beautifully printed duotones from that collection organized by themes such as neighborhoods, the Seine, major buildings, the roads. Maps at the beginning of each chapter orient the reader, and Jean-Louis Cohen provides excellent captions and instructive essays, all in English.

Henrad wrote UN ENRAGÉ DU CIEL ("THE FLYING MADMAN") (which has not been translated into English) describing his reconnaissance pilot experiences during World War II and why he explored Paris from the sky. Henrard was director of a factory of photographic instruments in 1930 and developed an aerial camera, which he started to use himself after learning to pilot a plane. His first flying observatory was a high-winged single-engine aircraft designed in 1932 --- a Farman 402, with a 120-horsepower Lorraine engine. Henrard called this plane an "optical and mechanical laboratory," using his own aerial camera system to take his photographs. He obtained a permanent flight permit from the Air Force and was able to devise a rigorous all-weather photography system.

In 1948 he continued his flights in a Nord 1203 Norécrin (a low-winged aircraft derived from the Messerschmitt Bf 108), in which he installed the rapid cameras that he would continue to use for his aerial photography until 1972, three years prior to his death. In the preface to UN ENRAGÉ DU CIEL a wartime companion and novelist Jules Roy describes how the photographer used his "mechanical retina":

"In cramped conditions and with the sun at his back, he takes his photos with all the precision of a fighter pilot performing a snap roll or a bombardier landing his crate in a vineyard. He calculates itinerary and arrival time, always picking out some makeshift airfield on which to crash should his only engine fail. Over Paris, for example, he is more or less sure of always being able to make a crash landing--on the Seine between two bridges, on lettuce and spinach plants at Gennevilliers, on the Vincennes rifle range, or on the glass roof of Gare de l'Est. And why not on the terrace of the Galeries Lafayette?"

When Henrard took the photographs in this book, the city was still contained within the fortified walls built by Adolphe Thiers in 1845. Today's maps and city guides still show that asymmetric polygonal form. Henrard circled the city tirelessly, taking photographs by the thousand and surveying that classic shape and some of the encroachments of the city into the areas outside the walls.

Henrard was not the first photographer to capture Paris from a flying machine. But his techniques were more rigorous and his artistic eye created great beauty while preserving cartographic accuracy. I've walked for at least 500 miles through the streets of Paris on business and pleasure trips over the years. It always seemed barricaded and crammed together from the sidewalk, brought alive from time to time with pockets of open space along the boulevards and near the Seine.

This book gave me an entirely different vision of the city, and the essays made my imagination soar. This is a picture book with a brain and a soul.

Robert C. Ross 2008