The round green columns covered in theatre and movie posters that you find on Paris sidewalks are called colonnes Morris, after the printers Mr Morris & Son, who won a contest in 1868 to design the new “colonnes-affiches” (poster columns). Previously, posters for shows were pinned on wooden boards on the outside of public urinals set up by the municipality. They were improved upon under Napoléon III by the engineer Adolphe Alphand who made sure people couldn’t be seen when inside and installed gas lighting inside. The masonry was replaced with cast iron, but the double function of urinal and poster display didn’t sit well with critics.

Morris senior and junior took inspiration from the German Litfaßsäulen (after their creator Ernst Litfaß), introduced in Germany in 1854 to fight fly-posting. They gave the columns a distinctive domed roof to protect the posters from the weather. Baron Haussmann gave them a monopoly for the columns. The last of the urinal-poster columns disappeared in 1877. Twenty-one years later, the capital counted 225 Morris columns.

Over a hundred years and a few controversies later, you can still find these emblematic columns all over Paris. The posters advertising theatre plays and movies are protected by plexiglass panes, some are illuminated at night, some are rotary to better display the posters.