Paris is the most sublime city .
Throughout the centuries important Public Buildings and Squares have been conceived, but it was certainly the XIX Century that has given it the definite touch by its huge scale of focal points, perspective compositions and … the influence of Neo Classicism …
But this strong Radical Neo-Classical (watch the videos of Boullée and Ledoux) influence, started already and definitely at the end of XVIII Century … as the fundamental reference book of Allan Braham illustrates …
I leave you some general examples of Neo Classical buildings … and a more specific example of very late – end of the XVIII Century Project… that illustrates the “Retour à LÁntique”and “Le Gout Grec”… La Rue des Colonnes …
Yours … Jeeves .


Perspective - Focal point Madeleine from La Concorde through the Pavillions of Gabriel ...



La rue des Colonnes


La rue des Colonnes est un des rares exemples de construction de l'époque révolutionnaire par son apparence néo-grec, ses trottoirs et ses colonnes. Les promoteurs ont voulu lui donner une fonction urbaine permettant la liaison entre la rue des Filles Saint-Thomas et le théâtre Feydeau construit en 1791 par Jacques-Guillaume Legrand et Jacques Molinos.



Madeleine

In 1806 Napoleon made his decision to erect a memorial, a Temple de la Gloire de la Grande Armée ("Temple to the Glory of the Great Army"); following an elaborate competition with numerous entries and a jury that decided on a design by the architect Claude Étienne de Beaumont (1757-1811), the Emperor trumped all, instead commissioning Pierre-Alexandre Vignon (1763–1828) to build his design on an antique temple (Compare the Maison Carrée, in Nîmes) The then-existing foundations were razed, preserving the standing columns, and work begun anew. With completion of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in 1808, the original commemorative role for the temple was blunted.
After the fall of Napoleon, with the Catholic reaction during the Restoration, King Louis XVIII determined that the structure would be used as a church, dedicated to Mary Magdalene. Vignon died in 1828 before completing the project and was replaced by Jacques-Marie Huvé. A new competition was set up in 1828-29, to determine the design for sculptures for the pediment, a Last Judgment, in which Mary Magdalene knelt to intercede for the Damned; the winner was Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire. The July Monarchy rededicated the monument of repentance for Revolution as a monument of national reconciliation, and the nave was vaulted in 1831. In 1837 it was briefly suggested that the building might best be utilized as a train station, but the building was finally consecrated as a church in 1842.
The funeral of Chopin at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris was delayed almost two weeks, until October 30 1849. Chopin had requested that Mozart's Requiem be sung. The Requiem had major parts for female voices, but the Church of the Madeleine had never permitted female singers in its choir. The Church finally relented, on condition that the female singers remain behind a black velvet curtain.





Palais Bourbon The Palais Bourbon, a palace located on the left bank of the Seine, across from the Place de la Concorde, Paris (which is on the right bank), is the seat of the French National Assembly, the lower legislative chamber of the French government.


The grand Roman portico added to the Palais Bourbon in 1806-08, Poyet, architect

The palace was originally built for the legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan - Louise-Françoise de Bourbon, duchesse de Bourbon, to a design by the Italian architect Lorenzo Giardini, approved by Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Giardini oversaw the actual construction from 1722 until his death in 1724, after which Jacques Gabriel took over, assisted by L'Assurance and other designers, until its completion in 1728.
Rather than a palace, for it was not a royal seat of power, the French termed it a maison de plaisance overlooking the Seine, facing the Tuileries to the east and the developing Champs-Élysées on the west. At the start it was composed of a principal block with simple wings ending in matching pavilions. Bosquets of trees—planted in orderly rank and file—and parterres separated it from the nearby Hôtel de Lassay. In 1756 Louis XV bought it for the Crown, then sold it to the grandson of the Duchess, Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé, for whom Jacques-Germain Soufflot directed an enlargement in 1765.
During the French Revolution the Palais Bourbon was nationalized, and the Council of the Five Hundred met in the palace from 1798. Then, as part of Napoleon's plans for a more monumental Paris, Fontanes, the president of the Corps législatif as it was now called, commissioned the magnificent pedimented portico by architect Bernard Poyet, added to the front of the Palais that faces the Place de la Concorde from the south. It mirrors the similar classicizing portico of the Madeleine, visible at the far end of the rue Royale.



Théâtre de l'Odéon


The Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe (formerly the Théâtre de l'Odéon) is one of France's six national theatres.
It is located at 2 rue Corneille in the 6th arrondissement of Paris on the left bank of the Seine, next to the Luxembourg Garden. It was built between 1779 and 1782, in the garden of the former Hôtel de Condé, to a Neoclassical design by Charles De Wailly and Marie-Joseph Peyre, originally in order to house the Comédie Française, which, however, preferred to stay at the Théâtre-Français in the Palais Royal. The new theatre was inaugurated by Marie-Antoinette on April 9, 1782. It was there that The Marriage of Figaro play was premiered two years later.
An 1808 reconstruction of the theater designed by Jean Chalgrin (architect of the Arc de Triomphe) was officially named the Théâtre de l'Impératrice, but everyone still called it the Odéon. It burned in 1818. The third and present structure, designed by Pierre Thomas Baraguay, was opened in September of 1819.
In 1990, the theater was given the sobriquet 'Théâtre de l'Europe'. It is a member theater of the Union of the Theatres of Europe.





Palais de la Bourse

Le Palais Brongniart anciennement appelé Palais de la Bourse est un édifice entouré d'un péristyle de style corinthien, qui accueillait la Bourse de Paris. Il est situé dans le quartier Vivienne, dans le 2e arrondissement de Paris.
La construction du palais fut confiée par Napoléon Ier en 1807 à l'architecte Alexandre Théodore Brongniart, à qui l'Empereur dit : « Monsieur Brongniart, voilà de belles lignes. À l'exécution mettez les ouvriers ! ». Cependant, Brongniart mourut le 6 juin 1813, avant même l'achèvement des travaux, en 1825. L'inauguration du Palais Brongniart a eu lieu le 4 novembre 1826.
Fontaine note le 8 juin 1813 dans son journal, sous le titre Mort de l'architecte de la Bourse :

« M. Brongniart architecte chargé de construire l'édifice de la bourse vient de mourir. Il laisse à terminer l'un des plus beaux et des plus importants du règne présent. La disposition générale du plan que l'on exécute est bonne, mais les détails n'ont pas été suffisamment étudiés. On a déjà fait quelques changements dans les distributions intérieures et le parti à prendre pour la décoration et la couverture de la grande salle n'est pas définitivement adopté. Plusieurs architectes se présentent pour remplacer M. Brongniart mais le ministre jusqu'ici n'a pas agréé leurs services. Il a fait offrir à mon ami Percier qui n'a rien demandé de le nommer. Cette préférence est due à M. Bruyère, mais Percier a refusé. »

Parmi les candidats à la reprise du projet, on compte François-Joseph Bélanger et Louis-Pierre Baltard.
C'est finalement Éloi Labarre (1764-1833) qui prit la succession de Brongniart et acheva l'édifice en novembre 1825.
Il a été inscrit monument historique par un arrêté du 27 octobre 1987.

Anciennement Bourse de Paris (dont les cours sont gérés par informatique depuis 1987), le Palais Brongniart, propriété de la Ville de Paris, est actuellement un lieu de conférences, séminaires et réceptions, géré auparavant par Euronext, aujourd'hui par GL Events pour une durée de trente ans. Le maire de Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, a demandé à son ancien adjoint, Éric Ferrand, de conduire la mission de définition et de préfiguration de ce que pourra devenir ce site après 2009.
Suite à un accord entre GL Events et l'École européenne des métiers de l'Internet, le Palais Brongniart accueillera à l'automne 2011 les premiers étudiants de cette école nouvellement créée.



École de Medicine


The Ecole de chirurgie (School of Surgery) is located in Paris, France. It was designed by the architect Jacques Gondouin from 1769 to 1774 after surgery came to be recognized as a specialized discipline in the medical sciences. This was due to the respect that King Louis XV had for his Premier Chirurgien (surgeon), Germain Pichault de la Martinière. Consequently, an independent academy for surgery was established in 1731 and ratified in 1750. Previously, surgeons had been confused with barbers.
The ground floor housed a rectangular theatre for the instruction of midwives, a chemistry lab, a public hall, a room reserved for students in training for the army, and a small hospital. The second level housed a library for displaying medical instruments, several lecture rooms, and offices. Gondoin's original plan for the forecourt also included a civil prison that would have supplied corpses, yet it was never built. The most important section of the complex was the hemispherical amphitheatre located at the rear. The building is currently a part of the Université René Descartes focusing on the medical and social sciences. The university is public and enrolls over 30,000 students. The school is a prime example of neo-classical architecture in France inspired by Gondoin's second visit to Italy. It is Gondoin’s only known work in architecture.

Gondoin on his building: It is "a monument of the beneficence of the King...which should have the character of magnificence relative to its function; a school whose fame attracts a great concourse of Pupils from all nations should appear open and easy of access. The absolute necessity of columns to fulfill these two objects, is alone sufficient to protect me from the reproach of having multiplied them unduly." Ecole de Chirurgie changed the hôtel typology by building in the style for a public building versus a private house. Three wings surround a court acting as circulation for the entire building. Situated on an irregular plot, the Ecole is able to appear symmetrical. Gondoin placed a screen of Ionic columns along the facades of both the walls facing the court and the street. A plain frieze rests directly upon the column capitals. Above the main entry arch, lying between the entablature and the upper cornice on the street façade is an Ionic relief panel, designed by Berruer. The relief panel depicts the muse of architecture giving a scroll of the building plan to the god of medicine. The hemispherical anatomy theatre is at the rear. It is signified by the exterior by a Corinthian portico featuring freestanding columns. As a purely symbolic temple front, entrance occurs from the sides. Modeled after the Pantheon, it is lit by an oculus. A coffered ceiling drapes over the main stage and seating for 1200 spectators including the public, not just students. The people of the time saw surgery as a progressive movement and wanted to be a part of it. A semicircular lunette above the main doorway shows portraits of famous predecessors including Le Martinière along with paintings showing the King encouraging their progress and the gods engaged in transmitting the principles of anatomy.



Hôtel de Salm


Hôtel de Salm
The Palais de la Légion d'Honneur (French for "Palace of the Legion of Honor") is the building on the west bank of the River Seine in Paris that houses the Musée national de la Légion d'Honneur et des Ordres de Chevalerie ("National Museum of the Legion of Honour") and is the seat of the Légion d'honneur, the highest order of chivalry of France. The building is also known as the Hôtel de Salm. It is located at 64, Rue de Lille.
The Hôtel de Salm was constructed between 1782 and 1787 by the architect Pierre Rousseau (1751–1810) for the German Prince Frederick III, Fürst of Salm-Kyrburg. The revolutionary government nationalised the building, and from 13 May 1804 it was renamed the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur, and became the seat of the newly created Légion d'honneur. The interior was remodeled for that purpose by Antoine-François Peyre,[1] and new exterior sculptures were added by Jean Guillaume Moitte and Philippe-Laurent Roland.[citation needed] An additional building was added in 1866 along the then-new Rue de Solférino, but the palace was destroyed by fire in 1871, under the Paris Commune. A replica was rebuilt soon afterwards under Anastase Mortier, with painters Jean-Paul Laurens and Théodore Maillot providing interior decoration. An additional building was added from 1922–1925 on Rue de Bellechasse in order to house a museum of the Legion of Honor.