Stade de France, Paris
The Stade De France is the premier stadium in France hosting Rugby and Football internationals. It is an 80,000 seater stadium which was opened in January 1998 ready for France’s hosting of the football world cup. It featured Frances greatest home international moment when they beat Brazil 3-0 in the football world cup final. Read more
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Le Centre Pompidou (Pompidou center in English) is one of the most spectacular buildings of Paris. It was designed by architects Renzo Piano (from Italy) and Richard Rodgers (from the UK) to bring art and culture to the man in the street. Its 1977 factory style architecture (right and below) violently contrasts with the surrounding houses of Paris’ oldest district near Notre-Dame cathedral. Read more
Place des Vosges, Paris
The Place des Vosges (on the right) lies at the heart of the fashionable Marais district, not far from the new Bastille opera. King Henri IV decided its construction at the beginning of the 17th century (below, the Place des Vosges during 17th century). The Place des Vosges has a brick and stone architecture unique in Paris. It also features an homogeneous square design and lovely arcades. Read more
Jardin du Luxembourg
The garden created in 1617 by “Boyeau de La Bareaudière”, first theorist of the French garden, on Marie de Medicis’s initiative, organized itself around a central flowerbed crowned with terraces. Two thousand elms aligned in square framed the perspective which stumbled in the South over the wall of the enclosure of the Carthusian monks. The monks refusing to give up a thumb of ground, the extension southward was realized only at the end of the 18th century, after the disappearance of the convent during the revolution. Luxemburg was reshaped under the First Empire by Chalgrin, who widens and prolonged the central perspective and created a garden in the southwest. Read more
Pont Neuf, Paris
This is the oldest bridge in Paris; work started on it in 1578 under Henry III, and it was finished in 1606 under Henry IV. For the way it was conceived, however, it is extremely modern, even revolutionary if compared to the designs of bridges before it. All the other bridges in the city, in fact, had been lined with high houses hiding the view of the river. Read more
Pantheon, Paris
The Pantheon is dedicated by “A Grateful Nation” as the resting place for ‘The Great Men’ of France, ‘men’ here being in the sense of ‘people’, for among them and surely one of the greatest is Marie Curie (photo 2), who is entombed under the name Marie Curie-Sklodowska, the latter being her Polish maiden name. Along with her you will find an assortment of well-known names such as Victor Hugo, Émile Zola and Louis Braille, as well as lesser-known names outside France, such as Jean Moulin, a wartime hero of the Resistance. Read more
Opera Garnier, Paris
The Opera Garnier or Palais Garnier, still known to many as the “Paris Opera,” was the world’s largest theatre and opera house when it opened on January 5, 1875. The cavernous building, designed by Charles Garnier, was one of 171 proposals submitted in an architectural competition in 1861. The Palais Garnier took 14 years to build, with its completion being delayed by money troubles, the Franco-Prussian War (when the building was used as a warehouse), and a fire that gutted the interior and killed a fireman in 1873. Read more
Petit Palais, Paris
The Petit Palais is also built for the Exhibition Universelle in 1900 at the same time as the Grand Palais at the opposite of the street. The palace is constructed around a semi-circular courtyard and garden. The building with ionic columns, a grand porch and a dome is designed in the same style as the Grand Palais.
The Petit Palais (Small Palace) is a museum in Paris, France. Built for the Universal Exhibition in 1900 to Charles Girault’s designs, it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (musée des beaux-arts de la ville de Paris). The current exhibits are divided into sections: the Dutuit Collection of medieval and Renaissance paintings, drawings and objets d’art; the Tuck Collection of 18th century furniture and the City of Paris collection of works by French artists, such as Jean Ingres, Eugène Delacroix and Gustave Courbet.
Along with the Grand Palais and the Pont Alexandre III, the Petit Palais served as one of the main focuses of the International Exhibition of 1900 and helped solidify the position of France as artistic world leader. Despite its inferiority in size to the Grand Palais, contemporary critics noted that the Petit Palais is of “equal importance in creating an impression of the artistic success of the Exhibition” (Boyd, 194). From its inception, it was built to serve as a permanent gallery of painting and sculpture.
History and Architecture
Reopened in 2005 after more than 4 years of renovations, Paris’ Petit Palais was – like its counterpart across the street, Petit Palais, Paristhe Grand Palais – built for the Universal Exposition in the year 1900. Originally meant to be just a temporary structure to host a large exposition of French art, this magnificent Beaux Arts-style building - designed by Charles Girault - became a favorite with Paris residents, who refused to tear it down and it still stands today.
Musée du Petit Palais Museum
The extremely beautiful Petit Palais in the 8th arrondissement was created and built by Charles Girault for the Universal Exposition of 1900 as a city museum to house major collections and a legacy to Auguste Dutuit, offering a broad range of art from antiquity until the beginning of this century. Plus it now houses the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.
Temporary Exhibitions
In addition to interesting temporary exhibitions the Petit Palais has housed since 1902 the valuable art collections of the city of Paris, which have been much enhanced by private donations: the Dutuit brothers, for example, bequeathed to the city in 1902 a collection of ancient, medieval and Renaissance art, with pictures (including works by Rembrandt and Rubens), drawings, books, majolica, enamels and ceramics, while the Tuck collection, presented to the city in 1930, consists mainly of 18th century furniture, tapestries and sculpture.
Hostile Parisians
Towards the end of the 19th century, the Champs-Elysées was a very popular place to stroll for Parisians. Long gone were the days of the large wasteland that Louis XIV wanted to turn into a prestigious “royal road”. It had become a long and large avenue that stretched from the Tuileries to the Arch of Triumph and was planted with many trees which occasionally framed large rectangular clearings forming charming squares.
Moulin Rouge, Paris
The Moulin Rouge, world-wide famous thanks to its French Cancan, and immortalized by the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, has always presented sumptuous shows to its spectators: from the Valentin-le-Désossé and la Goulue’s Quadrille to the Redoutes and Operettas, from Colette to Mistinguett’s great revues… the concept is still the same at the Moulin Rouge: feathers, shinestones and sequins, fabulous settings, original music and of course the most beautiful girl in the world ! Read more
Madeleine, Paris
The Madeleine Church offers a pretty view of the Place de la Concorde, just down the Rue Royale. Beyond that, across the Seine, you can see the Palais Bourbon, in perfect harmony with the Madeleine’s Greek temple-like facade. The construction of the church was not without its problems, however; the original plans, designed by Constant d’Ivry in 1764 under Louis the 15th, echoed the Church of the Invalids, with a dome surmounting a cross-shaped building. However, work on the church stopped nearly as soon as it began. Couture restarted work on the project in 1777 but was interrupted during the Revolution. Finally, in 1806 Napoleon entrusted Vignon to transform it into a “Temple of Glory”. Read more
