France's architectural
legacy is rich and
important, reflecting the
power and personality of
successive kings, the
Church and the state,
vying to outdo their peers
with bold, lavish
statements in brick and
stone. Many architectural
trends filtered into
France from Italy -
Romanesque, Renaissance
and Baroque - but they
have been refined and
developed by the French.
Rococo grew from Baroque,
Neoclassicism came from
the Renaissance, and Art
Nouveau was a brilliant,
confused jumble of Baroque
features combined with the
newly developed cast-iron
industry. Architecture
this century has produced
two great names - Auguste
Perret and Le Corbusier -
but France's contemporary
scene is still thriving,
with a host of new
developments throughout
the country.
The Romans
The south of France was
colonized by the Romans by
around 120 BC in order to
expand their trading
operations, and they set
up substantial settlements
at Marseille, Narbonne,
Orange, Arles, Fr้jus,
Glanum near St-R้my, and
Nice, with a network...
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Carolingian and
Romanesque
The Carolingian dynasty of
Charlemagne attempted a
revival of the symbols of
civilized authority by
recourse to Roman or
" Romanesque "
models. Of this era,
practically nothing
remains visible, though
the motifs of arch and...
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Gothic
The reasons behind the
development of the Gothic
style lie in the pursuit
of sensations of the
sublime; to achieve great
height without apparent
great weight would seem to
imitate religious
ambition. Its development
in the north is partly
due...
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Renaissance
Quite early in the
sixteenth century the
influence of the new style
of the Italian Renaissance
began to appear. Coupled
with the persistence of
Gothic traditions and the
necessity of steep roofs
and tall chimneys in the
French climate, it...
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Baroque and Rococo
In a similar way to the
preceding century, the
churches of the
seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries have a coldness
quite different from the
German and Flemish Baroque
or the Italian. When the
Renaissance style first
appeared in the early...
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The nineteenth century
The restoration of
legitimate monarchy after
the fall of Napol้on
stimulated a revival of
interest in older Gothic
and early Renaissance
styles, which offered a
symbol of dynastic
reassurance not only to
the state but also to the
newly rich....
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The twentieth century
The greatest proponent of
the super New York scale,
who also had genuine if
mistaken concern for how
people lived, was Le
Corbusier , the most
famous twentieth-century
French architect. His
stature may now appear
diminished by the...
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