Haussmann's renovation of Paris was a vast public works program commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III and directed by his prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugene Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870. It included the demolition of crowded and unhealthy medieval neighborhoods, the building of wide avenues, parks and squares, the annexation of the suburbs surrounding Paris, and the construction of new sewers, fountains and aqueducts. Haussmann's work met with fierce opposition, and he was finally dismissed by Napoleon III in 1870; but work on his projects continued until 1927. The street plan and distinctive appearance of the center of Paris today is largely the result of Haussmann's renovation. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the center of Paris was overcrowded, dark, dangerous, and unhealthy. In 1845 the French social reformer Victor Consider ant wrote: "Paris is an immense workshop of putrefaction, where misery, pestilence and sickness work in concert.