.gif)
Charles Garnier (architect)
Encyclopedia
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Opéra de Monte-Carlo
The Opéra de Monte-Carlo is an opera house located in the principality of Monaco.With the lack of cultural diversions available in Monaco in the 1870s, Prince Charles III, along with the Société des Bains de Mer, decided on the construction of an opera house. Initially, it was Charles III's...
.
Early life
Charles Garnier was born Jean-Louis Charles Garnier on 6 November 1825, in Paris, France, on the Rue Mouffetard, which is in the present day 5th arrondissement. His father was originally from Sarthe, and had worked as a blacksmith, wheelwright, and coachbuilder before settling down in Paris to work in a horse-drawn carriage rental business. He married Felicia Colle, daughter of a captain in the French Army.Later in life, Garnier would all but ignore the fact that he was born of humble origins, preferring to claim Sartre as his birthplace.
Education
Garnier became an apprentice of Louis-Hippolyte LebasLouis-Hippolyte Lebas
Louis-Hippolyte Lebas was a French architect working in a rational and severe Neoclassical style, who was trained in the atelier of Percier and Fontaine, the favoured architects of Napoleon...
, and after that a full-time student of the École royale des Beaux-Arts de Paris
École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts is the distinguished National School of Fine Arts in Paris, France.The École des Beaux-arts is made up of a vast complex of buildings located at 14 rue Bonaparte, between the quai Malaquais and the rue Bonaparte, in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Près,...
, beginning during 1842. He obtained the Premier Grand Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
in 1848, at age twenty-three. The subject of his final examination was entitled:"Un conservatoire des arts et métiers, avec galerie d'expositions pour les produits de l'industrie". He became a pensioner of the Académie de France à Rome from 17 January to 31 December 1849.
He traveled through Greece which provided him the subject of his fourth year submission, presented at the Paris Salon
Paris Salon
The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
in 1853. He visited Greece with Edmond About and Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
with Théophile Gautier
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
. He worked on the Temple of Aphaea
Temple of Aphaea
The Temple of Afea The Temple of Afea The Temple of Afea (the name Afea appears on all the local signs, Afea being the name of a Cretan woman of unsurpassed beauty. After escaping a unwelcome marriage on Crete, she was rescued by a fisherman from Aegina. In payment for this he also proposed an...
in Aegina
Aegina
Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...
where he insisted on polychromy.
He was named, in 1874, member of the Institut de France
Institut de France
The Institut de France is a French learned society, grouping five académies, the most famous of which is the Académie française.The institute, located in Paris, manages approximately 1,000 foundations, as well as museums and chateaux open for visit. It also awards prizes and subsidies, which...
, in the architecture section of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
Académie des beaux-arts
The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...
.
Paris Opera
In 1860, the Second Empire of Emperor Napoleon III began a competition, seeking an architect to design the plans for the new, state-funded opera house. The current opera house, located at the Place de l'Opera, had stood since before the Revolution, and was badly in need of repair.Applicants were given a month to submit entries, Garnier being one of them. His design was selected from among 171 other entries, and soon the thirty-five-year-old and relatively unknown man began work on the building which eventually would be named for him, the Palais Garnier Opera House.
His design was considered highly original, though most had difficulty in deciding exactly what style he was trying to portray. When asked by Empress Eugenie in what style the building was to be done, he is said to have replied, "In the Napoleon III, madame."
Construction began in the summer of 1861, though setbacks would delay it for another fourteen years. During the first week of excavation, an underground stream was discovered, rendering the ground too unstable for a foundation. It required eight months for the water to be pumped out, though enough was left in the area which eventually became the fifth cellar for operating the hydraulic stage machinery above. Garnier's double-walled and bitumen-sealed cement and concrete foundation proved strong enough to withstand any possible leakages, and construction continued.
The defeat of the French army in Sedan by the Prussians in 1870 resulted in the end of the Second Empire. During the Siege of Paris and the Paris Commune in 1871, the unfinished Opera was used as a warehouse for goods, as well as a military prison.
The opera was finally inaugurated on February 5, 1875. Many of the most prestigious monarchs of Europe attended the opening ceremony, including the President of France's new Republic, Marshal McMahon, the Lord Mayor of London, and King Alfonso XII of Spain.
The people who entered the massive building, spanning nearly 119000 square feet (11,055.5 m²), were generally awed by its immense size and extensive ornamentation. Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
described it as resembling a railway station on the outside, and that the interior could easily be mistaken for a Turkish bath.
Garnier's works represent a Neo-Baroque-inspired style, popular during the Beaux-Arts period in France. He was influenced by the Italianate styles of Renaissance artisans such as Palladio, Sansovino
Jacopo Sansovino
Jacopo d'Antonio Sansovino was an Italian sculptor and architect, known best for his works around the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Andrea Palladio, in the Preface to his Quattro Libri was of the opinion that Sansovino's Biblioteca Marciana was the best building erected since Antiquity...
, and Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
, perhaps the result of his many visits to Greece and Rome during his lifetime. He was also a pioneer of architectural beauty as well as function; his opera was built on a framework of metal girders, unprecedented at the time. Aside from being fireproof, steel and iron was much stronger than wood, allowing it to successfully withstand the countless heavy tons of marble and other materials heaped upon it without breaking.
Later work
After completing his Opera house, Garnier retired to Italy, more specifically the city of Bordighera, on the Mediterranean coast where he built the Villa Garnier - his own private residence, in 1871. He contributed various private and public buildings to this town until his death at age 72 in August 1898. His other architectural contributions in France include the Nice Astronomical Observatory, the Marigny Theatre, as well as the operaOpéra de Monte-Carlo
The Opéra de Monte-Carlo is an opera house located in the principality of Monaco.With the lack of cultural diversions available in Monaco in the 1870s, Prince Charles III, along with the Société des Bains de Mer, decided on the construction of an opera house. Initially, it was Charles III's...
and the Grand Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
in Monaco.
He was interred in the Montparnasse cemetery
Montparnasse Cemetery
Montparnasse Cemetery is a cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, part of the city's 14th arrondissement.-History:Created from three farms in 1824, the cemetery at Montparnasse was originally known as Le Cimetière du Sud. Cemeteries had been banned from Paris since the closure, owing to...
in Paris.
In France
- In Paris :
- Palais GarnierPalais GarnierThe Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
- Théâtre MarignyThéâtre MarignyThe Théâtre Marigny is a theatre in Paris, situated near the junction of the Champs-Élysées and the Avenue Marigny, in the 8th arrondissement. It was originally built to designs of the architect Charles Garnier for the display of a panorama, which opened in 1883...
(ex-Panorama de Marigny) - The circle of the library, boulevard Saint-Germain
- The hôtel particulier rue du Docteur-Lancereaux (the "maison opéra")
- Tomb of Jacques OffenbachJacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
, cimetière de Montmartre (1880) - The Ateliers Berthier, on the boulevard of the same name, the annex of the Opéra and its fabrication workshops for decorations and storage of costumeCostumeThe term costume can refer to wardrobe and dress in general, or to the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period. Costume may also refer to the artistic arrangement of accessories in a picture, statue, poem, or play, appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances...
s and sceneryTheatrical sceneryTheatrical scenery is that which is used as a setting for a theatrical production. Scenery may be just about anything, from a single chair to an elaborately re-created street, no matter how large or how small, whether or not the item was custom-made or is, in fact, the genuine item, appropriated...
. This building was his last realisation.
- Palais Garnier
- In Provence :
- The casino and thermal baths of VittelVittelVittel is a commune in the Vosges department in Lorraine in northeastern France.Mineral water is bottled and sold here by Nestlé Waters France, under the Vittel brand.-History:...
- The église of Chapelle-en-Thiérache
- The Astronomical Observatory in Nice (in collaboration with the engineer Gustave EiffelGustave EiffelAlexandre Gustave Eiffel was a French structural engineer from the École Centrale Paris, an architect, an entrepreneur and a specialist of metallic structures...
)
- The casino and thermal baths of Vittel
Abroad
- In MonacoMonacoMonaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
:- The Official Opera, the opéraOpéra de Monte-CarloThe Opéra de Monte-Carlo is an opera house located in the principality of Monaco.With the lack of cultural diversions available in Monaco in the 1870s, Prince Charles III, along with the Société des Bains de Mer, decided on the construction of an opera house. Initially, it was Charles III's...
and the Grand Hôtel de Paris in Monte CarloMonte CarloMonte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
- The Official Opera, the opéra
- In BordigheraBordigheraBordighera is a town and comune in the Province of Imperia, Liguria .-History:The city was founded around the 4th century BC by the Ligures....
, Italy:- The Église de Terrasanta
- The École Communale, today the Mairie de la ville
- Villa Bischoffsheim (now the Villa Etelinda)
- Villa Garnier (1871)
- Villa Studio
Quotations
- In 1851, alors qu'il est pensionnaire à la Villa Médicis à Rome et à l'occasion d'un voyage à AthensAthensAthens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, Garnier s'exclame en découvrant le ParthenonParthenonThe Parthenon is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their virgin patron. Its construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although...
: "Il n'y a pas à choisir entre les arts, il faut être Dieu ou architecte."
- "Les ingénieurs ont de fréquentes occasions d'employer le fer en grandes parties, et c'est sur cette matière que plus d'un fonde l'espoir d'une architecture nouvelle. Je lui dis tout de suite, c'est là une erreur. Le fer est un moyen, ce ne sera jamais un principe."