2024-11-21T14:50:03-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/103260143/the-mound-of-vend-me-digs-up-paris-dirty-revolutionary-past Amelia Taylor-Hochberg 2014-07-02T19:20:00-04:00 >2014-07-03T12:22:02-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/kp/kp5w607d10fdwq3v.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><p>Situating&nbsp;<a href="http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/2418-the-mound-of-vendome" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><strong>The Mound of Vend&ocirc;me</strong></a>,&nbsp;the current exhibition on view at the <a href="http://www.cca.qc.ca/en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Canadian Centre for Architecture</a>, requires looking back into Paris' history after the French Revolution. For a tumultuous two months in 1871, the city was under the control of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune#The_destruction_of_the_Place_Vend.C3.B4me_Column" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Commune de Paris</a>, a socialist revolutionary government.&nbsp;Their distaste for imperialistic brute force and Bonapartism led to their demolition of the Place&nbsp;Vend&ocirc;me Column,&nbsp;a monumental column celebrating Napoleon's military victories -- and so on May 16, 1871, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vend%C3%B4me_Column#The_Vend.C3.B4me_Column" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the Column was felled</a>, and the statue of Napoleon from the Column's peak melted down for coins. After the Commune was ousted, the Column was rebuilt in 1874, topped by a copy of the original Napoleon statue.</p><p>To control the Column's fall and protect surrounding buildings, Communards piled a large mound of&nbsp;sand, straw, branches, and manure&nbsp;at its base, a large architectural intervention that completely disrupted the Column's imposing icon. These days, however, all traces of these events...</p>