Piercing Time: Paris after Marville and Atget

“I have had this book for weeks now and can’t ever get past a few pages at a time. Not because the material is so dense (the essays are fine), but because I keep falling into the historical pictures. Each is beautifully reproduced here. Each begs one to don an avatar and step back in time to experience it. And then, when ready to come back to the present, the accompanying comparison pics give one a visceral sense of change that really cannot be conveyed in words. Pick a page, any page, and go down the rabbit hole.”

“This perfectly suits my interest in architecture. I always wondered what Paris looked like in the years before it’s restoration. This is marvelous. The images show before, after, early 20th century and now, all side by side . The shots are taken from the same vantage point. Fascinating.
If anyone is interested in set design for early Paris, this is a must. Even if you try to imagine what Paris looked like when you read novels and history – wow.”