Le fonds des dessins d’architecture du palais de justice aux Archives de Paris

Abstract

The Archives of Paris preserve, under section 37Fi, the collection of architect’s drawings of the former architectural office of Paris’s palais de justice (courthouse). Its recent classification has provided a detailed research instrument and has made its consultation possible.As we reviewed the timeline of the works, specified by these drawings, we have strived to point out the distinctive characteristics of this collection of architectural drawings: working methods of the offices, technical issues, illustration of conservation and restoration practices of old buildings or the quest for an aesthetics of justice.

Keywords

• This outstanding group of documents allows to keep track of the thinking and achievements of the architects in charge of the courthouse
• mainly between 1838 and 1915 – that is the creation time of the judicial precinct that occupied the premises until 2018
• from its complete detachment from the palais of Ancien Regime to the last expansions on the eve of the First World War. The richness of this collection comes from both information on the architectural history of the building and on the way an architectura
• the Civilian buildings used to work in the 19th century.