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Paris Opera (opened in 1875) and its actual history, Leroux both unearths and conceals several ironic foundations of a capital city that had by 1910 become a model for urban redevelopment throughout much of Europe. In order for this new ‘palace of the people’ to be built, many old buildings and alley-ways of central Paris had been ruthlessly demolished, forcing the poorer and working-class inhabitants
model of urban redevelopment throughout much of Europe. Granted, in its attempt to subsume many architectural styles (including oriental ones) within its neo-Baroque and very insistent façades and interiors, the Opéra was designed, first for the Second Empire and then for the purposes of the Third Republic, to be the supreme announcement of France’s ‘imperial power ... and the participation of the urban