Here is the next posting of our journey and trip to Paris, France. This posting will include visits to Arc de Triomphe and some other random pictures from our travels. Please enjoy and comment when you feel the urge. As always, click on the thumbnails for a larger image.
Jan striking a pose in front of a billboard while in the Paris subway.
The Arc de Triomphe is a monument in Paris that stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle, also known as the Place de l'Étoile (Star Square). It is at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. The arch honors those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars, and today also includes the tomb of the unknown soldier.
The Arc is the linchpin of the historic axis (L'Axe historique) — a sequence of monuments and grand thoroughfares on a route which goes from the courtyard of the Louvre Palace to the outskirts of Paris. The monument was designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806, and its iconographic program pitted heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail and set the tone for public monuments, with triumphant nationalistic messages, until World War I.
The monument stands over 51 meters (165 ft) in height and is 45 meters wide. It is the second largest triumphal arch in existence. Its design was inspired by the Roman Arch of Titus; The Arc de Triomphe is so colossal that three weeks after the Paris victory parade in 1919, marking the end of hostilities in World War I, Charles Godefroy flew his Nieuport biplane through it, and was caught in a newsreel.
The Grand Palais
Petit Palais
The Petit Palais is a museum in Paris, France. Built for the Universal Exhibition in 1900 to Charles Girault's designs, it now houses the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.
Arranged around a pretty semi-circular courtyard and garden, the palace is similar to the nearby Grand Palais. Its ionic columns, grand porch and dome echo those of the Invalides across the river.
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.
Église de la Madeleine
L'église de la Madeleine, or L'église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine (or simply "La Madeleine"), is a church in a commanding position in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, in its present form designed as a temple to the glory of Napoleon's army.
The site of this edifice, centered at the end of rue Royale, a line-of-sight between Gabriel's twin hôtels in the Place de la Concorde, required a suitably monumental end from the time the square was established in 1755, as Place Louis XV. The settlement round the site, called Ville l'Évêque, for it had belonged to the bishop of Paris since the time of Philip II of France, when Bishop Maurice de Sully seized the synagogue that stood on the site from the Jews of Paris in 1182, and duly consecrated it a Church dedicated to Mary Magdalene. The site has been annexed to the city of Paris since 1722.
Two false starts were made on building a church on this site. The reconstruction of the older church consecrated to Mary Magdalene was considered. The first design, commissioned in 1757, with construction begun with the King's ceremonial placing of the cornerstone, 3 April 1763, was halted in 1764; that first design, by Pierre Contant d'Ivry, was based on Mansart's Late Baroque church of Les Invalides, with a dome surmounting a Latin cross. In 1777 Contant d'Ivry died and was replaced by his pupil Guillaume-Martin Couture, who decided to start anew, razing the incomplete construction, shortening the nave and basing his new, more centralized design on the Roman Pantheon. At the start of the Revolution, however, only the foundations and the grand portico had been finished; the choir of the former church was demolished in 1797, but work was discontinued while debate simmered as to what purpose the eventual building might serve in Revolutionary France: a library, a public ballroom, and a marketplace were all suggested. In the meantime, the National Assembly was housed in the Palais Bourbon behind a pedimented colonnaded front that was inspired by the completed portico at the far end of the former rue Royale.
In 1806 Napoleon made his decision to erect a memorial, a Temple de la Gloire de la Grande Armée ("Temple to the Glory of the Great Army"); following an elaborate competition with numerous entries and a jury that decided on a design by Beaumont, the Emperor trumped all, instead commissioning Pierre-Alexandre Barthélémy Vignon (1763-1828) to build his design on an antique temple (Compare the Maison Carrée, Nîmes) The then-existing foundations were razed, preserving the standing columns, and work begun anew. With completion of the Arc de Triomphe in 1808, the original commemorative role for the temple was blunted.
After the fall of Napoleon, with the Catholic reaction during the Restoration, King Louis XVIII determined that the structure would be used as a church, dedicated to Mary Magdalene. Vignon died in 1828 before completing the project and was replaced by Jacques-Marie Huvé. A new competition was set up in 1828-29, to determine the design for sculptures for the pediment, a Last Judgment, in which Mary Magdalene knelt to intercede for the Damned; the winner was Charles Lemaire. The July Monarchy rededicated the monument of repentance for Revolution as a monument of national reconciliation, and the nave was vaulted in 1831. In 1837 it was briefly suggested that the building might best be utilized as a train station, but the building was finally consecrated as a church in 1842.
Opéra National de Paris and Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique
Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique was the official theatre of the French theatrical institution known as the Académie Royale de Musique from 1821 until 1873, and was principal venue of the Parisian opera (from 1822) and ballet companies until its destruction by fire in
1873.
The theatre was designed by the architect Debret, and its construction was completed in only one year, replacing the previous theatre which had occupied its space. It was inaugurated in 1821.
The Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique is referred to under many names, the most common being the Paris Opéra, Opéra de Paris, or Grand Opéra.
