This is modern Paris. I doubt if this street looks much different today, saving aside that it is doubtless overrun by cars. The buildings are probably little changed, although the signage may be less restrained than here.

Without the large monument in the distance (le Vendôme, I believe), this would be a rather boring street. There is nothing else to relieve the monotony. (The buildings are good and varied, so even without the distant monument it would be a decent street.) But consider how much more interesting this view would be if the street weren't perfectly rectilinear - curve it a bit, make it here narrower and there wider - any of these things would, to my mind, improve the scene.

When Cartesian thought supplanted humanist thought, many things were simplified in the name of logic and order. Humans are not fundamentally logical creatures and do not demand simple order. In fact, complex order is much more interesting to us than simple order. That, I believe, is the reason that this street is boring.

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