This property is listed for € 6,800,000 by Valérie Selignan of Daniel Feau Real Estate

Paris is definitely one of our favourite cities in the world, and a place we visit again and again. With that in mind, we can definitely see ourselves in this 8th arr. Parisian apartment.

On the 4th floor of a Haussmannian building, this elegantly designed and renovated 3 bedroom apartment features views of the Arc du Triomphe from its French windows and balconies.

What is a Haussmanian building you ask?

Well, by the mid 19th century Paris was a far cry from the city many of us know and love today. It was hugely overcrowded, which led to crime and disease running rampant.

Paris had evolved from a pre-medieval city with little to no planning: its streets were narrow, dark and winding, some only 1 to 5 metres wide. Its crumbling buildings were built one on top of the other, and getting around central Paris was difficult, to say the least.

Victor Considerant, a socialist reformer, wrote: “Paris is an immense workshop of putrefaction, where misery, pestilence and sickness work in concert, where sunlight and air rarely penetrate...where plants shrivel and perish”

When he was elected as president, Louis-Napoleon, Napoleon's nephew, said in a speech: "Paris is the heart of France...Let us open new streets, make the working class quarters, which lack air and light, more healthy, and let the beneficial sunlight reach everywhere within our walls."

He hired the prefect of the Seine department, Georges-Eugène Haussmann to “aerate, unify, and embellish” his capital. Between 1853-1870, he carried out what are commonly referred to as the Haussmann’s Renovations of Paris, enlisting 3000 workers to modernize the city.

Levelling much of old Paris, he replaced the crowded buildings with tall apartment blocks and wide avenues punctuated by large squares and monuments. Before Haussmann, Paris had only 4 public parks; now, Parisians could walk to a park in the city in 10 minutes or less.

Haussmann saw city blocks as a single unit, and each building was seen as part of the entire block: on the outside, the facades were regulated to ensure a uniform look in height, colour, material and design, while interiors were left to the owners.

Today Haussmann’s apartments are an icon of the city’s aesthetic.

All photos belong to the listing agency.