PARIS IN THE 20th CENTURY : from agglomeration to international metropolis : It seems that the defeat of the Commune was forgotten in the 1900`s because this period became known as the Belle Epoque. Despite a housing crisis the 1900`s marked the introduction of modern conveniences such as electricity, bathrooms, lifts and central heating. Paris at that time embraced “la Dolce Vita”, lightness and gaiety. Optimism was rife since the success of the International Exhibition of 1889, for which the Eiffel Tower was constructed. National pride also took expression in the constitution of a new colonial empire which offered – so it was believed – every perspective. Paris was thus the world`s creative capital, of the fashionable plastic arts, not forgetting theatre and cinema. Artists from the whole world, often later naturalised, installed themselves. Writers such as Ionesco, Cioran, Kessel, Troyat, Julian Green, and also painters and sculptors such as Modigliani, Picasso, Dali, Miro, Chagall, Soustine, de Stael, Mondrian, Giacometti, Foujita, and Brancusi…They found themselves alongside French artists such as Bonnard, Braque, Léger, Matisse and Utrillo… This climate didn`t survive the First World War. There was no longer afterwards in the twentieth century a sole capital for the art of the world. For example, for the cinema Hollywood supplanted Paris during the war.