# A figure-ground map of Paris by building period

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2021-12-14

construction, construction-period, figure-ground-map, france, mapping, paris, samuel-hughes, urbanism

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This is a great tweet and link:

https://twitter.com/SCP\_Hughes/status/1470391359957778434

The link is to a figure-ground map of Paris that allows you to filter its buildings by period of construction. Here's what all of the periods and all of the buildings look like:

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/7a99e4dabba1bc275004d0545b1748d0.png)

Once you play around with the map, it will become obvious that the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century was a prolific building period for Paris (1231 hectares of area). This is what Samuel was getting at in his tweet.

I would love to see a map like this for every city in the world.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/a-figure-ground-map-of-paris-by-building-period)*