Our exhibit

While Yichen was scrolling through the Dropbox, she noticed that there were many images of town squares. We decided to make that our focal point.

A quick Wikipedia search showed us that Paris does not regard these as Americans traditionally understand “squares”, but rather call them “places”.

However, the French use of the word, “square”, presents some small problems in interpretation because native speakers of English use the same word to mean a notable urban crossroads (like Times Square in New York City) or an urban roundabout (like Trafalgar Square in London), where neither grass nor trees nor flowers are present. Such a public space would be called a place in Paris: as in Place de l’Étoile or Place des Vosges or Place de Clichy. The French use of the word “place”, —— where, in the USA, the UK, Canada, etc., an English-speaker would use the word “square”, —— follows the pattern established in other European languages: the Spanish use the cognate, “plaza” (like Madrid’s Plaza Mayor); the Germans use “platz” (Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz); the Italians use “piazza” (Rome’s Piazza Navona); etc.

So, in summary, the French have “squares” that might (or, more likely, might not) be called “squares” in English, and they use the word “place” to denote what an anglophone would almost certainly call a “square”.

We decided to make collections highlighting 4 of these “places”.

1) Places des Vosges

2) Couvent des Célestins

3) Jardin Turc

4) Place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville

We can see through the pieces that all kinds of events – celebrations, music performances, gathering of both the middle class and bourgeoisie – happened in these public outdoor spaces throughout the history of the city.

Our goal is to showcase how theses public places changed over time and how people used them changed over time (and how they stayed the same).

It is interesting to compare these spaces to large public areas that we are familiar with, such as the Boston Commons or Central Park in NYC.