Ads
related to: what is the architecture of versailles castleEnjoy everything Versailles has to offer with a wide range of tours & activities. Full refund available up to 24 Hours before your tour date. Quick & easy purchase process.
- Tours & Sightseeing
Browse the top ranked tours
for your trip. Book online.
- Sight Tickets & Passes
Compare and buy tickets and
passes for top attractions.
- Tours & Sightseeing
Palace of Versailles Tours! Full Refund Up To 24 Hours Before Tour Date.
Visit Top Paris Attractions, all hand-picked by Local Experts. Top Paris Attractions all on One Digital Pass! Take Total Control of your Trip.
Book ahead & get your Palace of Versailles tickets on your smartphone with Tiqets. Discover & book tickets to top museums & attractions in Versailles.
Search results
Baroque and Classical architectural styles
- Versailles showcases a mesmerizing blend of Baroque and Classical architectural styles. The Baroque influence adds drama and grandeur with ornate details, elaborate sculptures, and curvilinear forms. The Classical touch brings a sense of order and symmetry, inspired by ancient Greek and Roman designs.
www.versailles-palace-tickets.com › architecture
People also ask
Is Versailles a Baroque building?
What makes the palace of Versailles a Baroque architecture?
Who designed the palace of Versailles?
What is the architectural structure of Versailles?
Discover the great architect of the Palace of Versailles, father of the sumptuous and grandiose architecture of this monument visited by tourists from all over the world.
Jul 9, 2019 · Versailles is about 10 miles from Paris and easily accessible by car, taxi, bus, or train. The RER C line links central Paris with the Versailles Rive Gauche station—five minutes from the palace ...
Official name: Palace of Versailles; Attraction type: Historic palace and museum; Address: Place d’Armes, 78000 Versailles; Constructed: Originally constructed in 1623, it was turned into a palace during Louix XIV’s reign in 1661; Area: 1,070 hectares; Architectural style: Classicalism and Baroque
- Overview
- Huge, but oh so stylish
- Buttons and bedchambers
- Hall of mirrors
- Classical restraint
- Sun King or Sun God
When the King of France, Louis XIV, first decided to build a new palace and move his court out of Paris, there was nothing on his chosen site at Versailles but a smallish hunting lodge. Today, the palace stands as a prime example of the over-the-top excesses of the French nobility that led to the French Revolution.
Thanks to the team of Louis le Vau (architect to the aristocracy), André le Nôtre (landscape designer extraordinaire), and Charles le Brun (über-fashionable interior decorator and painter), Louis XIV’s enormous and stylish palace was completed 21 years after it was begun in 1661 allowing Louis (and his closest friends, family, courtiers, servants and soldiers—all 20,000 of them) to officially set up court there (by that point, the next superstar architect, Jules Hardouin Mansart, had taken up the design reins). Enormous is no joke. The place has 700 rooms, 2,153 windows, and takes up 67,000 square meters of floor space (for those of you keeping track at home, that’s over 12 American football fields or a bit more than 9 soccer pitches).
Over and above anything else, Versailles was meant to emphasize Louis’s importance. After all, this is the guy that called himself The Sun King; as in, everything revolves around me. “L’état, c’est moi” (I am the state), he said, famously and oh-so-modestly. By building Versailles, Louis shifted the seat of French government away from the feuding, gossiping, trouble-making noble families in Paris. He had the whole palace and its massive gardens built along an East/West axis so the sun would rise and set in alignment with his home. And he filled both the palace and its gardens with sculpture, painting, and fountains that all focused on…you guessed it…himself.
When you walk through the palace at Versailles, you’re bombarded with room after room of marble and gold and paintings: ceilings painted to place Louis in the company of the Greek gods, busts of him in a huge formal curly wig staring at you wherever you go, and gold gold gold, so you never lose sight of how wealthy the King of France was. To give you just a hint, we’re talking about a man who spent the equivalent of 5,000,000onbuttonsoverthe54yearsofhisreign.That′sanaverageofalmost 100,000 a year. On buttons.
Of the 700 rooms inside the palace, there are a few notable ones that served very particular functions. The king’s official state bedroom is one, where the incredibly detailed lever (rising) and coucher (going to sleep) rituals would be performed each day. Both involved a whole host of courtiers waiting on the king while he got up or went to bed, following strict rules of position and rank to determine who got to perform which parts of the ceremony.
The most famous room is the Hall of Mirrors, which runs along the entire length of the central building. One wall contains a row of giant windows looking out over the gardens (almost 2,000 acres of manicured lawns, fountains and paths arranged in the formal garden style that André le Nôtre was known for), and the other wall is covered with 357 mirrors that catch the setting sun’s rays inside the palace and remind us yet again (as if we could forget) of Louis XIV’s power.
Though the room is over the top in its grandeur, it was mainly used as a passageway. After the king got up for the day, he proceeded through this mirrored hall to his private chapel, and as many courtiers as could fit would squeeze in, waiting for their chance to beg a favor of the king as he passed by them. Since Louis XIV’s day, the room has also been used for parties (the masked ball for the wedding of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette) and military agreements (the Treaty of Versailles that officially ended World War I was signed here in 1919).
The palace’s outside isn’t as ornate as its inside. Sure it’s still huge, and sure it’s still got plenty of gold and statues and embellishments, but the basic structure is classical; it’s symmetrical, repetitive, and based on simple elements that are directly borrowed from ancient Greek temples. The façade that faces the gardens looks remarkably similar to the White House in Washington, DC, albeit much bigger and not so white.
Before you go thinking that this is a sign of Louis XIV’s hidden modesty, keep in mind that classical architecture was intended to remind people of the greatness of the antique Greek and Roman past (Greek and Roman civilization were often lumped together and called classical). When Versailles was being built, this ancient past was seen as the root of the intellectual and aesthetic superiority they believed had descended to the French nation. Classical architecture was the name of the game at Versailles, and although it wasn’t as complicated as some of Louis XIV's other choices, he was making a direct link from himself all the way back to the great thinkers and builders of the ancient, classical, past.
Louis, ever modest, especially liked linking himself directly to the Greek god Apollo (Sun King = Sun God… subtle wasn’t Louis’s middle name). The Apollo Fountain and Apollo Salon remain two of the major highlights of a visit to Versailles. Not content with the restraint of pure classical design, he had his team create a palace that used classical structures to contain the elaborate grandeur of the Baroque style that was all the rage in the mid-seventeenth century. He wanted to make the biggest possible statement and what he ended up with was Versailles: a palace designed to glorify the French monarch by incorporating both ornate Baroque decoration that amply demonstrates his wealth and glory and the stricter rules of classicism that express his intellectual and cultural stature.
Essay by Rachel Ropeik
Additional resources:
Versailles website
Versailles at UNESCO World Heritage Site
360 degree view of Versailles
- The Royal Gate. The Royal Gate is the main entrance to the Palace of Versailles and separates the Cour d’Honneur from the Cour d’Armes. This 80-meter gate, designed in Baroque style by Jules-Hardouin Mansart (the architect of the Palace), is made of gilded rough iron, and it is decorated with 100,000 gold leaves.
- Cour de Marbre – Marble Court. After validating the ticket and the security check, visitors usually head straight to the King’s State Apartments. Before, please-please take the time to admire the Marble Court.
- Apollo Salon. The King’s State Apartments include the King’s private, business, and reception rooms. These are some of the most famous rooms inside Palace of Versailles.
- Royal Chapel. The Royal Chapel inside the Palace of Versailles is the fifth one to be built within the premises. It was recently restored and looks amazing.
Aug 9, 2022 · The Architecture of the Palace and Gardens. The Palace and Gardens of Versailles are one of the most iconic architectural landmarks in the world. The palace, built in the 17th century, is a prime example of French Baroque architecture, characterized by its grandiose scale and ornate decorations.
History of the Palace of Versailles. The main construction of Versailles took place in four campaigns between 1664 and 1710. Palace of Versailles, the building's evolution. The Palace of Versailles is a royal château in Versailles, Yvelines, in the Île-de-France region of France.
Ads
related to: what is the architecture of versailles castleEnjoy everything Versailles has to offer with a wide range of tours & activities. Full refund available up to 24 Hours before your tour date. Quick & easy purchase process.
Palace of Versailles Tours! Full Refund Up To 24 Hours Before Tour Date.
