Ancient architecture of Paris

The city of Paris has notable examples of architecture of every period from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. It was the birthplace of the Gothic style, and has important monuments of the French Renaissance, the Classical revival, and flamboyant style of the reign of Napoleon III; the Belle Époque, and the Art Nouveau style. The great Paris Universal Expositions of 1889 and 1900 added Paris landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower and Grand Palais. In the 20th century, the Art Deco style of architecture first appeared in Paris, and Paris architects also influenced the postmodern architecture of the second half of the century.

Gallo-Roman architecture
Very little architecture remains from the ancient town of Lutetia, founded by a Celtic tribe known as the Parisii in about the 3rd century BC. It was conquered by the Romans in 52 BC, and turned into a Gallo-Roman garrison town. It was rebuilt in the 1st century AD on the classic Roman plan; a north-south axis, or cardo (now rue Saint-Jacques); and an east-west axis, or decumanus, of which traces have been found on the Île-de-la-Cité, at rue de Lutèce. The center of Roman administration was on the island; the Roman governor’s palace stood where the Palais de Justice is located today. The right bank was largely undeveloped. The city grew up the Left Bank, on the slopes of Mount Saint-Geneviève. The Roman forum was on the summit of the hill, under the present Rue Soufflot, between the boulevard Saint-Michel and rue Saint-Jacques,

The Roman town had three large baths near the forum, supplied with water by a 46-kilometer-long aqueduct. Vestiges of one bath, the Thermes de Cluny, can still be seen on Boulevard Saint-Michel. It was the largest of the three baths, one hundred meters by sixty-five meters, and was built at the end of the 2nd century or beginning of the 3rd century BC, at the height of the town’s grandeur. The baths are now part of the Musée national du Moyen Âge, or National Museum of the Middle Ages. Nearby, on rue Monge, are the vestiges of the Roman amphitheater, called the Arenes de Lutece, which was discovered and restored in the 19th century. Though the population of the town was probably no more than 5–6 thousand persons, the amphitheater measured 130 meters by 100 meters, and could seat fifteen thousand persons. Fifteen tiers of seats remain from the original thirty-five. It was built in the 1st century AD and was used for the combat of gladiators and animals, and also for theatrical performances.

Another notable piece of Gallo-Roman architecture was discovered under the choir of Notre-Dame de Paris; the Pilier des Nautes, or Pillar of the boatmen, a fragment of a Roman column with carvings of both Roman and Gallic gods. It was probably made at the beginning of the 1st century during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius to honor the league of the boatmen, who played an important part in the town’s economy and religious and civic life. It is now on display in the Roman baths at the Museum of the Middle Ages. Other fragments of Gallo-Roman architecture are found in the crypt under the square in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame; and in the Church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre, where several Roman columns, probably from a temple, were re-used in the late 12th century to build a Christian church.

Romanesque churches
Unlike the south of France, Paris has very few examples of Romanesque architecture; most churches and other buildings in that style were rebuilt in the Gothic style. The most remarkable example of Romanesque architecture in Paris is the church of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, built between 990 and 1160 during the reign of Robert the Pious. An earlier church had been destroyed by the Vikings in the 9th century. The oldest elements of the original church existing today are the tower (the belfry at the top was added in the 12th century), and the chapel of Saint Symphorien, on the south flank of the bell tower, built in the 11th century. It is considered the earliest existing place of worship in Paris. The gothic choir, with its flying buttresses, was added in the mid-12th century, it was consecrated by Pope Alexander III, in 1163. It was one of the earliest gothic style elements to appear in a Paris church.

Romanesque and Gothic elements are found together in several old Paris churches. The church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre (1147–1200) is only surviving building of the vast Abbey of Montmartre, which once covered the top of the hill; it has both ancient Roman columns and one of the first examples of a Gothic arched ceiling, in the nave near the choir. The interior of the church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre (1170–1220) has been extensively rebuilt, but it still has massive Romanesque columns and the exterior is a classic example of the Romano-Gothic style. The former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs (1060–1140) has a choir and chapels supported by contreforts and a Romanesque bell tower. It now belongs to the Musee des Arts et Metiers.

The Middle Ages
The Palais de la Cité
In 987 Hugues Capet became the first King of France, and established his capital in Paris, though at the time his kingdom was little bigger than the Île-de-France, or modern Paris region. The first royal residence, the Palais de la Cité, was established within the fortress at the western end of the Île de la Cité, where the Roman governors had established their residence. Capet and his successors gradually enlarged their kingdom through marriages and conquests. His son, Robert the Pious (972–1031), built the first palace, the Palais de la Cité, and royal chapel within the walls of the fortress, and his successors embellished it over the centuries; by the reign of Philippe le Bel in the 14th century, it was the most magnificent palace in Europe. The tallest structure was the Grosse Tour, or great tower, built by Louis le Gros between 1080 and 1137. It had a diameter of 11.7 meters at the base and walls three meters thick, and remained until its demolition in 1776. The ensemble of buildings (seen in the image at right as they were between 1412 and 1416) included a royal residence, a great hall for ceremonies, and four large towers along the Seine on the north side of the island, as well as a gallery of luxury shops, the first Paris shopping center. Between 1242 and 1248 King Louis IX, later known as Saint Louis, built an exquisite gothic chapel, Sainte-Chapelle, to house the relics of the Passion of Christ which he had acquired from the Emperor of Byzantium.

In 1358 a rebellion of the Parisian merchants against the royal authority, led by Etienne Marcel, caused the King, Charles V, to move his residence to a new palace, the hôtel Saint-Pol, near the Bastille at the eastern edge of the city. The Palace was used occasionally for special ceremonies and to welcome foreign monarchs, but housed the administrative offices and courts of the Kingdom, as well as an important prison. The Great Hall was destroyed by a fire in 1618, rebuilt; another fire in 1776 destroyed the residence of the King, the tower of Mongomery. During the French Revolution, the revolutionary tribunal was housed in the building; hundreds of persons, including Queen Marie Antoinette, were tried and imprisoned there, before being taken to the guillotine. After the Revolution the Conciergerie served as a prison and courthouse. It was burned by the Paris Commune in 1871, but was rebuilt. The prison was closed in 1934, and the Conciergerie became a museum.

Several vestiges of the medieval Palais de la Cité, extensively modified and restored, can still be seen today; the royal chapel, Sainte-Chapelle; the Hall of the Men-at-Arms, (early 14th century), the former dining hall of the palace officials and guards, located underneath the now-vanished Great Hall; and the four towers along the Seine facing the right bank. The façade was built in the 19th century. The tower on the far right, the Tour Bonbec, is the oldest, built between 1226 and 1270 during the reign of Louis IX, or Saint Louis. It is distinguished by the crenolation at the top of the tower. It originally was a story shorter than the other towers, but was raised to match their height in the renovation of the 19th century. The tower served as the primary torture chamber during the Middle Ages. The two towers in the center, the Tour de César and the Tour d’Argent, were built in the 14th century, during the reign of Philippe le Bel. The tallest tower, the Tour de l’Horloge, was constructed by Jean le Bon in 1350, and modified several times over the centuries. The first public clock in Paris, was added by Charles V in 1370. The sculptural decoration around the clock, featuring allegorical figures of The Law and Justice, was added in 1585 century by Henry III.

City walls and castles
Much of the architecture of medieval Paris was designed to protect the city and King against attack; walls, towers, and castles. Between 1190 and 1202, King Philippe-Auguste began construction of a wall five kilometers long to protect the city on the right bank. The wall was reinforced by seventy-seven circular towers, each no more than six meters in diameter. He also began construction of a large castle, the Louvre, where the wall met the river. The Louvre was protected by a moat and a wall with ten towers. In the center was a massive circular donjon or tower, thirty meters high and fifteen meters in diameter. It was not then the residence of the King, but Philippe Auguste placed the royal archives there. Another walled complex of buildings, the Temple, the headquarters of the Knights Templar, was located on the right bank, centered around a massive tower.

The city on the right bank continued to grow outwards. The Provost of the Merchants, Etienne Marcel, began building a new city wall in 1356, which doubled the area of the city. The Louvre, now surrounded by the city, was given rich decoration and a grand new stairway, and gradually became more of residence than a fortress. Charles V, in 1364–80, moved his primary residence from the City Palace to the Hôtel Saint-Pol, a comfortable new palace in the new Le Marais quarter. To protect his new palace and the eastern flank of the city, in 1570 Charles began building the Bastille, a fortress with six cylindrical towers. At the same time, further east, in the forest of Vincennes, Charles V built an even larger castle, the Château de Vincennes, dominated by another massive keep or tower fifty-two meters high. It was completed in 1369. Beginning in 1379, close to the Château, he began constructing a replica of Sainte-Chapelle. Unlike the Sainte-Chapelle in the city, the interior of the Sainte-Chapelle of Vincennes was not divided into two levels; the interior was a single space, flooded with light.

Churches – the birth of the Gothic Style
The style of Gothic architecture was born in the rebuilding of the chevet of the Basilica of Saint-Denis, just outside Paris, finished in 1144. Twenty years later, the style was used on a much larger scale by Maurice de Sully in the construction of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. The construction continued until the 14th century. beginning with the twin towers on the west toward the choir in the east. The style evolved as the construction continued; the opening of the rose window on the western façade were relatively narrow; the great rose windows of the central transept were much more delicate, and allowed in much more light. At the western end, the walls were supported by buttresses built directly against the walls; in the center, completed later, the walls were supported by two steps of flying buttresses. In the last century of construction, the buttresses were able to cross the same distance with a single stone arch. The towers on the west were more stately and solemn, in the classic Gothic style, while the eastern elements of the Cathedral, with its combination of rose windows, spires, buttresses and pinnacles, belonged to more elaborate and decorative style, called the Gothic rayonnant.

Other Paris churches soon adapted the Gothic style; the choir of Abbey church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés was completely rebuilt in the new style, with pointed arches and flying buttresses. The church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre was rebuilt with ogives, or gothic pointed arches. The church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerois, next to the Louvre, was given a portal inspired by Notre Dame, and the church of Saint-Severin was given a Gothic nave with the first triforium, or first-story side gallery, in Paris. The supreme example of the new style was the upper chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, where the walls seemed to be made entirely of stained glass.

The Gothic Style went through another phase between 1400 and about 1550; the Flamboyant Gothic, which combined extremely refined forms and rich decoration. The style was used not only in churches, but also in some noble residences. Notable existing examples are the Church of Saint-Severin (1489–95) with its famous twisting pillar; the elegant choir of the church of St-Gervais-et-St-Protais,; the Tour Saint-Jacques, the flamboyant Gothic vestige of an abby church destroyed during the Revolution; and the chapel of the residence of the Abbots of Cluny, now the Museum of the Middle Ages. and the ceiling of the Tour Saint-Jean-Sans-Peur, a vestige of the former residence of the Dukes of Burgundy, in the 2nd arrondissement.

Houses and manors
The houses in Paris during the Middle Ages were tall and narrow; usually four or five stories. They were constructed of wooden beams on a stone foundation, with the walls covered by white plaster, to prevent fires. There was usually a shop located on the ground floor. Houses built of stone reserved for the wealthy; the oldest house in the Paris is considered to be the Maison de Nicolas Flamel, at 51 rue Montmorency in the 3rd arrondissement, built in 1407. it was not a private residence, but a kind of hostel. Two houses with exposed beams at 13-15 rue François-Miron in the 4th arrondissement, often described as Medieval, were actually built in the 16th and 17th centuries.

While there are no ordinary houses from the Middle Ages, there are several examples of manors built for the nobility and the high clergy. The Tour Jean-sans-Peur, at 20 rue Etienne-Marcel in the 2nd arrondissement, built in 1409–11, was part of the Hôtel de Burgogne, the Paris residence of the Dukes of Burgundy. Built by Robert de Helbuterne, It contains a stairway with a magnificent flamboyant gothic ceiling. The Hotel de Cluny residence of the abbots of the Cluny Monastery, now the Musée national du Moyen Âge, or National Museum of the Middle Ages, (1490–1500), has a typical feature of manors of the period; a stairway in a tower on the exterior of the building, in the courtyard. It also contains a chapel with a spectacular flamboyant gothic ceiling. The Hôtel de Sens was the Paris residence of the Archbishop of Sens, who had authority over the Bishops of Paris. It also featured a separate stairway tower in the courtyard.

Renaissance Paris (16th century)
The Italian Wars conducted by Charles VIII and Louis XII, at the end of the 15th and early 16th century were not very successful from a military point of view, had a direct and beneficial effect on the architecture of Paris. The two Kings returned to France with ideas for magnificent public architecture in the new Italian Renaissance style, and brought Italian architects to build them. A new manual of classical Roman architecture by the Italian Serlio also had a major effect on the new look of French buildings. A distinctly French Renaissance style, lavishly using cut stone and lavish ornamental sculpture, developed under Henry II after 1539,

The first structure in Paris in the new style was the old Pont Notre Dame (1507–12), designed by the Italian architect Fra Giocondo. It was lined with 68 artfully designed houses, the first example of Renaissance urbanism. King Francis I commissioned the next project; a new Hôtel de Ville, or city hall, for the city. It was designed by another Italian, Domenico da Cortona, and begun in 1532 but not finished until 1628. The building was burned in 1871 by the Paris Commune, but the central portion was faithfully reconstructed in 1882. A monumental fountain in the Italian style, the Fontaine des Innocents, was built in 1549 as a tribune for the welcome of the new King, Henry Ii, to the city on June 16, 1549. It was designed by Pierre Lescot with sculpture by Jean Goujon, and is the oldest existing fountain in Paris.

The first Renaissance Palace built in Paris was the Château de Madrid; it was a large hunting lodge designed by Philibert Delorme and erected between 1528 and 1552 west of the city in what is now the Bois de Boulogne. It was combination of both French and Italian Renaissance styles, with a high French-style roof and Italian loggias. It was demolished beginning in 1787, but a fragment can still be senen today in the Trocadero Gardens in the 16th arrondissement.

Under Henry II and his successors, the Louvre was gradually transformed from a medieval fortress into a Renaissance palace. The architect Pierre Lescot and sculptor Jean Gouchon made the Lescot wing of the Louvre, a masterpiece of combined French and Italian Renaissance art and architecture, on the southeast side of the Cour Carrée of the Louvre (1546–53). Inside the Louvre, they made the staircase of Henry II (1546–53) and the Salle des Cariatides (1550). Both French and Italian elements were combined; the antique orders and paired columns of the Italian renaissance were combined with sculpted medallions and high roofs broken by windows (later known as the Mansard roof), which were characteristic of the French style.

After the accidental death of Henry II of France in 1559, his widow Catherine de’ Medici (1519–1589) planned a new palace. She sold the medieval Hôtel des Tournelles, where her husband had died, and began building the Tuileries Palace in using architect Philibert de l’Orme. During the reign of Henry IV (1589–1610), the building was enlarged to the south, so it joined the long riverside gallery, the Grande Galerie, which ran all the way to the older Louvre Palace in the east.

Religious architecture
Most of the churches built in Paris in the 16th century are in the traditional flamboyant gothic style, though some have features borrowed from the Italian Renaissance. The most important Paris church of the Renaissance is Saint-Eustache, 105 meters long, 44 meters wide and 35 meters high, which in size and grandeur, approaches that of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. King Francis I wanted a monument as the centerpiece for the neighborhood of Les Halles, where the main city market was located. The church was designed by the King’s favorite architect, Domenico da Cortona, The project was begun in 1519, and construction began in 1532. The pillars were inspired by the monastery church of Cluny, and the soaring interior is taken from the gothic cathedrals of the 13th century, but Cortona added details and ornament taken from the Italian Renaissance. It was not completed until 1640.

The other churches of the period follow the more traditional flamboyant gothic models. They include Saint-Merri (1520–52), with a plan similar to Notre-Dame; Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, which features impressive flying buttresses; and the Église Saint-Medard. whose choir was built in beginning in 1550; St-Gervais-et-St-Protais features a soaring gothic vault in the apse, but also had a transept a more sober classical style inspired by the Renaissance. (The baroque façade was added in the 17th century).in the Saint-Étienne-du-Mont (1510–86), near the modern Pantheon on Mont Sainte-Genevieve, has the only remaining Renaissance rood-screen (1530–35), a magnificent bridge across the center of the church. The flamboyant gothic church of Saint-Nicholas-des-Champs (1559) has a striking Renaissance feature; a portal on right side inspired by designs of Philibert Delorme for the former royal residence, the Palace of Tournelles in the Marais.

Houses and Hotels
The ordinary Paris house of the Renaissance was little changed from the medieval house; they were four to five stories high, narrow, built on a stone foundation of wood covered with plaster. They usually had a pigeon, or gabled roof. The two houses at 13-15 rue François Miron (actually built in the 16th or 17th century, but often described as medieval houses) are good examples of the Renaissance house.

Once the French court returned to Paris from the Loire Valley, the nobility and wealthy merchants began to build hôtels particuliers, or large private residences, mostly in the Marais. They were built of stone and richly decorated with sculpture. They were usually built around a courtyard, and separated from the street. The residence was a located between the courtyard and garden. The façade facing the courtyard had the most sculptural decoration; the façade facing the garden was usually rough stone. The Hotel Carnavalet at 23 rue de Sévigné, (1547–49), designed by Pierre Lescot, and decorated with sculpture by Jean Goujon, is the best example of a Renaissance h As the century advanced, the exterior stairways disappeared and the façades became more classical and regular. A good example of the later style is the Hôtel d’Angoulême Lamoignon, at 24 rue Pavée in the 3rd arrondissement (1585–89), designed by Thibaut Métezeau.

The 17th century – The Baroque, the dome, and the debut of Classicism
The architectural style of the French Renaissance continued to dominate in Paris through the Regency of Marie de’ Medici. The end of the wars of religion allowed the continuation of several building projects, such as the expansion of the Louvre, begun in the 16th century but abandoned because of the war. With the arrival in power Louis XIII and the ministers Richelleu and Mazarin, a new architectural style, the baroque, imported from Italy, began to appear in Paris. Its purpose, like Baroque music and painting, was to awe Parisians with its majesty and ornament, in opposition to the austere style of the Protestant Reformation. The new style in Paris was characterized by opulence, irregularity, and an abundance of decoration. The straight geometric lines of the buildings were covered with curved or triangular frontons, niches with statues or cariatides, cartouches, garlands of drapery, and cascades of fruit carved from stone.

Louis XIV distrusted the unruly Parisians, and spent as little time as possible in Paris, finally moving his Court to Versailles in, but at the same time he wanted to transform Paris into “The New Rome”, a city worthy of the Sun King. Over the course of his long reign, from 1643 until 1715, the architectural style in Paris gradually changed from the exuberance of the baroque to a more solemn and formal classicism, the embodiment in stone of the King’s vision of Paris as “the new Rome.” The new Academy of Architecture, founded in 1671, imposed an official style, as the Academies of art and literature had earlier done. The style was modified again beginning in about 1690, as the government began to run short of money; new projects were less grandiose.

Royal squares and urban planning
In the 17th century, the first large-scale urban planning of Paris was initiated by royal ordinance, largely based on the model of Italian cities, including the construction of the first residential squares. The first two squares, Place Royale (now Place des Vosges, 1605–12) and Place Dauphine, the latter in place of the old royal garden on the Île-de-la-Cité, were both begun by Henry IV, who also completed the first Paris bridge without houses, the Pont Neuf (1599–1604). The Place Royale had nine large residences on each of its four sides, with identical façades. The Place Dauphine had forty houses on its three sides (of which just two remain today). Louis XIV continued the style with Place des Victoires (1684–97) and Place Vendôme (1699–1702). Both of these squares were (1) designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, (2) had statues of the King in the center, and (3) were financed largely by the sale of the houses around the squares. The residences around the latter two squares had identical classical façades and were built of stone, following Hardouin-Mansart’s Grand Style used in his monumental buildings. The residential squares all had pedestrian arcades on the ground floors, and what became known as a mansart window breaking the line of the high roof. They set a model for European squares in the 18th century.

Urban planning was another important legacy of the 17th century. In 1667 formal height limits were imposed on Paris buildings; 48 pieds (15.6 metres (51 ft)) for wooden buildings and 50 to 60 pieds (16.25 to 19.50 metres (53.3 to 64.0 ft)) for buildings of stone, following earlier rules set in place in 1607. To prevent fires, the traditional gabled roof was banned. Beginning in 1669, under the new regulations, large blocks of houses of uniform height and uniform façades were built along several Paris streets on the right bank, notably rue de la Ferronnerie (1st arr.), rue Saint-Honoré (1st arr.), rue du Mail (2nd arr.), and rue Saint-Louis-en-Île on the Île Saint-Louis. They usually were built of stone and composed of an arched arcade on the ground floor with two to four stories above, the windows separated by decorative columns, and a high roof broken by rows of windows. This was the birth of the iconic Paris street architecture that dominated for the next two centuries.

Another element of the new architecture of Paris was the bridge. The Pont Neuf (1599–1604) and Pont Royal (1685–89), by engineer François Romain and architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, were built without the rows of houses that occupied earlier bridges, and were designed to match the grand style of the architecture around them.

Palaces and monuments
After the assassination of Henry IV in 1610, his widow, Marie de’ Medici, became the regent for the young Louis XIII and between 1615 and 1631 she built a residence for herself, the Luxembourg Palace, on the left bank. It was inspired by the palaces of her native Florence, but also by the innovations of the French Renaissance. The architect was Salomon de Brosse, followed by Marin de la Vallée and Jacques Lemercier. In the gardens, she built a magnificent fountain, the Medici Fountain, also on the Italian model.

The construction of the Louvre was one of the major Paris architectural projects of the 17th century, and the palace architecture clearly showed the transition from the French Renaissance to the classical style of Louis XIV. Jacques Lemercier had built the Pavillon de l’Orloge in 1624–39 in an ornate baroque style. Between 1667 and 1678 Louis Le Vau, Charles Le Brun, François d’Orbay and Claude Perrault rebuilt the east exterior façade of the courtyard with a long colonnade. A competition was held in 1670 for the south façade, which included a proposal from the Italian architect Bernini. Louis XIV rejected Bernini’s Italianate plan in favor of a classical design by Perrault, which had a flat roof concealed by a balustrade and a series of massive columns an triangular pediments designed to convey elegance and power. Louis Le Vau and Claude Perrault rebuilt the interior façade of the cour Carée of the Louvre in a more classical version than that of the facing Renaissance façade. The Louvre was gradually transformed from a Renaissance and baroque palace to the classical grand style of Louis XIV.

Religious architecture
Church architecture in the 17th century was slow to change. Interiors of new parish churches, such as Saint-Sulpice, Saint-Louis-en-l’Île and Saint-Roch largely followed the traditional gothic floor-plan of Notre-Dame, though they did add façades and certain other decorative features from the Italian Baroque, and follow the advice of the Council of Trent to integrate themselves into the city’s architecture, and they were aligned with the street. In 1675, an official survey on the state of church architecture in Paris made by architects Daniel Gittard and Libéral Bruant recommended that certain churches “so-called Gothic, without any good order, beauty or harmony” should be rebuilt “in the new style of our beautiful modern architecture”, meaning the style imported from Italy, with certain French adaptations.

The architect Salomon de Brosse (1571–1626) introduced a new style of façade, based on the traditional orders of architecture (Doric, Ionic and Corinthian), placed one above the other. He first used this style in the façade of the Church of St-Gervais-et-St-Protais (1616–20). The style of the three superimposed orders appeared again in the Eglise Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, the new Jesuit church in Paris, designed by the Jesuit architects Etienne Martellange and François Derand. Saint-Roch (1653–90), designed by Jacques Lemercier, had a Gothic plan but colorful Italian-style decoration.

Debut of the dome
The most dramatic new feature of Paris religious architecture in the 17th century was the dome, which was first imported from Italy in about 1630, and began to change the Paris skyline, which hitherto had been entirely dominated by church spires and bell towers. The domed churches began as a weapon of the Counter-Reformation against the architectural austerity of the Protestants. The prototype for the Paris domes was the Church of the Jesu, the Jesuit church in Rome, built in 1568–84 by Giacomo della Porta. A very modest dome was created in Paris between 1608 and 1619 in the chapel of the Louanges on rue Bonaparte. (Today it is part of the structure of the École des Beaux-Arts). The first large dome was on the church of Saint-Joseph des Carmes, which was finished in 1630. Modifications in the traditional religious services, strongly supported by the growing monastic orders in Paris, led to modification in church architecture, with more emphasis on the section in the center of the church, beneath the dome. The circle of clear glass windows of the lower part of the dome filled the church center with light.

The most eloquent early architect of domes was the architect François Mansart. His first dome was at the chapel of the Minimes (later destroyed), then at the chapel of the Church of the Convent of the Visitation Saint-Marie at 17 rue Saint-Antoine (4th arr.), built between 1632 and 1634. Now the Temple du Marais, It is the oldest surviving dome in the city. Another appeared on the Eglise-Saint-Joseph in the convent of the Carmes-dechaussés at 70 rue de Vaugirard (6th arr.) between 1628 and 1630. Another dome soon was built in the Marais; the dome of the Church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis at 899-101 rue Saint-Antoine (1627–41), by Etienne Martellange and François Derand. It was followed by church of the Abbey of Val-de-Grâce (5th arr.) (1624–69), by Mansart and Pierre Le Muet; then by a dome on the Chapel of Saint-Ursule at the College of the Sorbonne (1632–34), by Jacques Lemercier; and the College des Quatres-Nations (now the Institute of France (1662–68), by Louis LeVau and François d’Orbay; and the church of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption de Paris on rue Saint-Honoré (1st arr.) (1670–76) by Charles Errard. The most majestic dome was that of the chapel of Les Invalides, by Jules Hardouin Mansart, built between 1677 and 1706. The last dome of the period was for a Protestant church, the Temple de Pentemont on rue de Grenelle (7th arr.) (about 1700) by Charles de La Fosse.

Residential architecture – the rustic style
An elegant new form of domestic architecture, the rustic style, appeared in Paris in the wealthy Le Marais at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century. This style of architecture was usually used for ornate apartments in wealthy areas, and for Hôtel Particuliers. It was sometimes called the “style of three crayons” because it used three colors; black slate tiles, red brick, and white stone. This architecture was expensive, having a variety of different materials, and ornate stone work. This style inspired the unique Palais de Versailles. The earliest existing examples are the house known as the Maison de Jacques coeurat 40 rue des Archives (4th arr. ) from the late 16th century; the Hôtel Scipion Sardini at 13 rue Scipion in the (5th arr,) from 1532, and the Abbot’s residence at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés at 3-5 rue de l’Abbaye, (6th arr.), from 1586. The most famous examples around found around the Place des Vosges, built between 1605 and 1612. Other good examples are the Hospital of Saint-Louis on rue Buchat (10th arr.) from 1607 to 1611; the two houses at 1-6 Place Dauphine on the Île de la Cité, from 1607 to 1612; and the Hôtel d’Alméras at 30 rue des Francs-Bourgeois (4th arr.), from 1612.

Residences – the classical style
The palatial new residences built by the nobility and the wealthy in the Marais featured two new and original specialized rooms; the dining room and the salon. The new residences typically were separated from the street by a wall and gatehouse. There was a large court of honor inside the gates, with galleries on either side, used for receptions, and for services and the stables. The house itself opened both onto the courtyard and onto a separate garden. One good example in its original form, between the Place des Vosges and rue Saint-Antoine, is the Hôtel de Sully, (1624–29), built by Jean Androuet du Cerceau.

After 1650 the architect François Mansart introduced a more classical and sober style to the hôtel particular. The Hôtel de Guénégaud des Brosses at 60 rue des Archives (3rd arrondissement) from 1653 had a greatly simplified and severe façade. Beginning in the 1660s Mansart remade the façades of the Hôtel Carnavalet, preserving some of the Renaissance decoration and a 16th portal but integrating them into a more classical composition, with columns, pediments and stone bossages.

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