The architecture of Paris created during the
Belle Époque, between 1871 and the beginning of the First World War in 1914, was notable for its variety of different styles, from
Beaux-Arts, neo-Byzantine and neo-Gothic to
Art Nouveau, and
Art Deco. It was also known for its lavish decoration and its imaginative use of both new and traditional materials, including iron, plate glass, colored tile and reinforced concrete.
The Great Expositions File:The Trocadero, Exposition Universal, 1900, Paris, France.jpg|The neo-Moorish
Palais du Trocadéro by
Gabriel Davioud and Jules Bourdais (1876–78) File:France illustrée I p78.png|The Gallery of Machines of the
Paris Universal Exposition of 1878 then the largest structure in the world File:Exposition Universelle de Paris 1889 - Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt.jpg|The
Eiffel Tower was the gateway of the
1889 Paris Universal Exposition, and the tallest structure in the world when it was built. File:Béroud - Le dôme central de la galerie des machines à l'exposition universelle de 1889 - P2314 - Musée Carnavalet (cropped).jpg|The new Gallery of Machines of the 1889 Exposition, again the largest building in the world, was decorated with colorful polychrome tiles. The fall of Napoleon III in 1871 and advent of the Third Republic was followed by the brief Paris rule of the
Paris Commune (March–May 1871). In the final days of the Commune, as the French Army recaptured the city, the Communards pulled down the column in
Place Vendôme and burned a number of Paris landmarks, including the 16th-century
Tuileries Palace, the 17th-century
Hôtel de Ville, the Ministry of Justice, the Cour des Comptes, the Conseil d'Etat, the
Palais de la Légion d'Honneur, the Ministry of Finance, and others. The interior of the Tuileries Palace was completely destroyed, but the walls were still standing. Haussmann and others called for its restoration, but the new government decided it was a symbol of the monarchy and had the walls torn down. (A fragment of the building can be seen today in the Park of the Trocadero). Most of the others were restored to their original appearance. To celebrate the rebuilding of the city the Parisians hosted the first of three universal expositions which attracted millions of visitors to Paris, and transformed the architecture of the city. • The
Paris Universal Exposition of 1878 saw the building of the
Palais du Trocadéro, an eclectic composition of Moorish, renaissance and other styles, on the hill of Chaillot by
Gabriel Davioud and Jules Bourdais (1876–78). It was used in the Expositions of 1889 and 1900, and remained until 1937, when it was replaced by the
Palais de Chaillot. • The
Paris Universal Exposition of 1889 celebrated the centenary of the
French Revolution. The
Eiffel Tower, (1887–89), conceived by entrepreneur
Gustave Eiffel, and built by engineers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nougier and architect
Stephen Sauvestre, was the tallest structure in the world, was the gateway to the Exposition, and the Gallery of Machines, designed by Ferdinand Dufert and
Victor Contamin, was the largest covered space in the world when it was built. It combined modern engineering with colorful polychrome decoration, typical of the Belle Epoque. File:Main entrance of Grand Palais, Paris July 2014.jpg|The
Grand Palais, by Henri Deglane,
Charles Girault, Albert Louvet and Albert Thomas (1897–1900), had a Beaux-Arts façade concealing a vast exhibit hall. File:Le Grand Palais - L'exposition de sculpture 2.jpg|The cathedral-like glass roof of the Grand Palais was supported by slender iron pillars File:Escalier 2, Petit Palais, Paris 24 August 2012.jpg|The interior of the
Petit Palais, with a curving stairway built of reinforced concrete and iron. • The
Paris Universal Exposition of 1900 extended to both the right and left banks of the Seine. It gave Paris three new landmarks; the
Grand Palais, the
Petit Palais and the
Pont Alexandre III. The Beaux-Arts façade of the Grand Palais (1897–1900), designed by Henri Deglane,
Charles Girault, Albert Louvet and Albert Thomas, was a synthesis of the grand neoclassical styles of Louis XIV and Louis XV. concealed a vast interior space covered by a glass roof resting on slender iron pillars. The Petit-Palais (1897–1900), by Charles Girault, borrowed elements of Italian Renaissance architecture, and French neoclassical decorative elements from
Les Invalides, the hotels beside the
Place de la Concorde and the palatial stables of the
Château de Chantilly by
Jean Aubert. Its interior was more revolutionary than the Grand Palais; Girault used reinforced concrete and iron to create a winding stairway along brightly lit galleries. The style of these two buildings, along with the colossal neoclassical style of Louis XVI, influenced the design of Paris residential and commercial buildings until 1920. The
Art Nouveau became the most famous style of the
Belle Époque, particularly associated with the
Paris Métro station entrances designed by
Hector Guimard, and with a handful of other buildings, including Guimard's
Castel Béranger (1898) at 14
rue La Fontaine, in the
16th arrondissement, and the ceramic-sculpture covered house by architect
Jules Lavirotte at 29 Avenue Rapp (7th arrondissement). The enthusiasm for
Art Nouveau did not last long; in 1904 the Guimard Metro entrance at Place de l'Opera it was replaced by a more classical entrance. Beginning in 1912, all the Guimard metro entrances were replaced with functional entrances without decoration.
Religious architecture File:Le sacre coeur (paris - france).jpg|The
Basilica of Sacré-Cœur, designed by
Paul Abadie, (1874–1914) File:Église Notre-Dame-d'Auteuil, 25 April 2007 - panoramio.jpg|The Church of Notre-Dame d'Auteuil by
Émile Vaudremer (1878–92) File:P1110140 Paris XIV église Saint-Dominique nef rwk.JPG|The neo-Byzantine church of Saint-Dominque, by Léon Gaudibert, (1912–25) File:St Jean de Montmartre.jpg|The Church of
Saint-Jean-de-Montmartre, by
Anatole de Baudot (1894) File:St-Jean interieur-DSC 1093w.jpg|Art-Nouveau interior of Saint-Jean-de-Montmartre (1894) File:Paris Synagogue RuePavée innen399.JPG|Interior of the Synagogue on Rue Pavée, by
Hector Guimard, with its discreet Art Nouveau detail (1913) From the 1870s until the 1930s the most prominent style for Paris churches was the Romano-Byzantine style; the model and most famous example was the
Sacré-Cœur, by
Paul Abadie, whose design won a national exposition. Its construction lasted the entire span of the Belle Epoque, between 1874 and 1913, under three different architects; it was not consecrated until 1919. It was modeled after the romanesque and Byzantine cathedrals of the early Middle Ages, which Abadie had restored. The style also appeared in the church of Notre-Dame d'Auteuil by
Émile Vaudremer (1878–92) The church of Saint-Dominque, by Leon Gaudibert, (1912–25) followed the style of Byzantine churches, with a massive central dome. The first church in Paris to be constructed of
reinforced concrete was
Saint-Jean-de-Montmartre, at 19
rue des Abbesses at the foot of Montmartre. The architect was
Anatole de Baudot, a student of
Viollet-le-Duc. The nature of the revolution was not evident, because Baudot faced the concrete with brick and ceramic tiles in a colorful
Art nouveau style, with stained glass windows in the same style.
The department store and the office building File:Le Bon Marché à Paris (1875).jpg|Interior of the
Bon Marché department store (1875) File:Laika ac Galeries Lafayette (10653278434).jpg|The glass cupola of the department store
Galeries Lafayette (1912) provides light to the galleries below File:Crédit lyonnais (1).JPG|Facade of the headquarters of
Crédit Lyonnais, William Bouwens Van der Boijen, in the Beaux-Arts style (1883) File:Galerie Centorial.jpg|The grand gallery of the headquarters of
Crédit Lyonnais at 18 rue du quatre septembre, by
Victor Laloux (1907) File:Socgen Agence Centrale 01.jpg|Cupola of the headquarters of
Société Générale at 29 boulevard Haussmann, by
Jacques Hermant (1905–11)
Aristide Boucicaut launched the first modern department store in Paris Au
Bon Marché, in 1852. Within twenty years, it had 1,825 employees and an income of more than 20 million francs. In 1869 Boucicault began constructing a much larger store, with an iron frame, a central courtyard covered with a glass skylight. The architect was
Louis-Charles Boileau, with assistance from the engineering firm of
Gustave Eiffel. After more enlargements and modifications, the building was finished in 1887, and became the prototype for other department stores in Paris and around the world. Au Bon Marché was followed by au Louvre in 1865; the
Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville) in 1866,
Au Printemps in 1865;
La Samaritaine in 1870, and
Galeries Lafayette in 1895. All the new stores glass skylights whenever possible to fill the stores with natural light, and designed the balconies around the central courts to provide the maximum of light to each section. Between 1903 and 1907 the architect
Frantz Jourdain created the interior and façades of the new building of
La Samaritaine. The safety elevator had been invented in 1852 by
Elisha Otis, making tall office buildings practical, and the first skyscraper, the
Home Insurance Building, a ten-story building with a steel frame, had been built in Chicago by
Louis Sullivan in 1893–94, but Paris architects and clients showed little interest in building tall office buildings. Paris was already the banking and financial capital of the continent, and moreover, as of 1889 it had the tallest structure in the world, the Eiffel Tower. While some Paris architects visited Chicago to see what has happening, no clients wanted to change the familiar skyline of Paris. The new office buildings of the Belle Époque often made use of steel, plate glass, elevators and other new architectural technologies, but they were hidden inside sober neoclassical stone façades, and the buildings matched the height of the other buildings on Haussmann's boulevards. The headquarters of the bank
Crédit Lyonnais, built in 1883 on the boulevard des Italiens in 1883 by William Bouwens Van der Boijen, was in the Beaux-Arts style on the outside, but inside one of the most modern buildings of its time, using an iron frame and glass skylight to provide ample light to large hall where the title deeds were held. In 1907 the building was updated with a new entrance at 15 rue du Quatre-Septembre, designed by
Victor Laloux, who also designed the Gare d'Orsay, now the
Musée d'Orsay The new entrance featured a striking rotunda with a glass dome over a floor of glass bricks, which allowed the daylight to illuminate the level below, and the three other levels below. The entrance was badly damaged by a fire in 1996; the rotunda was restored, but the only a few elements still remain of the titles hall.
Railway stations File:Gare de lyon.jpeg|
Gare de Lyon, by architect
Marius Toudoire (1895–1902). File:Train bleu 05.jpg|The
Train Bleu café in the Gare de Lyon, in the ornate Belle Époque style (1902) File:MuseedOrsayParisFrance.jpg|The clock of the Gare d'Orsay, by
Victor Laloux File:Gare-d'Orsay-BaS.jpg|Interior of the Gare d'Orsay (now the
Musée d'Orsay) in about 1900. The Belle Époque was the golden age of the Paris railway station; they served as the gateways of the city for the visitors who arrived for the great Expositions. A new
Gare de Lyon was built by Marius Toudoire between 1895 and 1902, making the maximum use of glass and iron combined with a picturesque bell tower and Beaux-Arts façade and decoration. The café of the station looked down on the platform where the trains arrived. The Gare d'Orsay (now the
Musée d'Orsay was the first station in the center of the city, on the site of the old Ministry of Finance, burned by the
Paris Commune. It was built in 1898–1900 in the palatial Beaux-Arts style by architect
Victor Laloux. It was the first Paris station to be electrified and to place the train platforms below street level, a model soon copied by New York and other cities.
Residential architecture – Beaux-Arts to Art Nouveau File:Paris 9 - Hôtel de Choudens -1.JPG|The Hôtel de Choudens, (1901), by
Charles Girault File:27 Quai Anatole France.jpg|27–29 quai Anatole-France (7th arr.) by
Richard Bouwens van der Boijen (1906) File:Paris 16 - Castel Béranger -1.JPG|The
Castel Béranger by
Hector Guimard (1899) File:Castel Beranger Entrance.jpg|Entrance of the Castel Beranger File:Immeuble art nouveau de Jules Lavirotte à Paris (5519755116).jpg|
Lavirotte Building by
Jules Lavirotte at 29 Avenue Rapp (1901) File:XDSC 7288-29-av-Rapp-paris-7.jpg|Entrance to building by Jules Lavirotte at 29 Avenue Rapp Private houses and apartment buildings in the Belle Époque were usually in the Beaux-Arts style, either neo-Renaissanace or neoclassical, or a mixture of the two. A good example is the Hôtel de Choudens (1901) by
Charles Girault, built for a client who wanted a house in the style of the
Petit Palais, which Giraud had designed. Apartment buildings saw changes in the interiors; with the development of elevators, the apartment of the wealthiest residents moved from the first floor above the street to the top floor. The rooflines of the new apartment buildings also changed, as the city removed the restrictions imposed by Haussmann; the most extravagant example was the apartment building at 27–29 quai Anatole-France in 7th arrondissement (1906), which sprouted profusion of turrets, spires and decorative arches, made possible by reinforced concrete. A competition for new façades was held in 1898, and one winner was
Hector Guimard for the design of a new apartment building, the
Castel Béranger (1895–98), the first Paris building in the
Art Nouveau style. The façade was inspired by the work of the Belgian Art Nouveau pioneer
Victor Horta; it used both elements of medieval architecture and
curved motifs inspired by plants and flowers. Horta designed every detail of the house, including furniture, wallpaper, door handles and locks. The success of the Castel Beranger led to Guimard's selection to design the entrance of stations of the new
Paris Métro. In 1901, the façade competition was won more extravagant architect,
Jules Lavirotte, who designed a house for the ceramic maker
Alexandre Bigot which was more a work of inhabited sculpture than a building. The façade was entirely covered with decorative ceramic sculpture. The popularity of Art Nouveau did not last long; the last Paris building in the style was Guimard's own house, the Hôtel Guimard at 122 Avenue Mozart (1909–13). ==Between the wars - Art Deco and modernism (1919–1939)==