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| Top Ten Essential Architecture | top ten Paris town houses | |||||||||||||
| For a more complete list, see Paris Main List | ||||||||||||||
| 1 | Hotel Guimard | |||||||||||||
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House for Marie-Madeleine Guimard, Paris, 1773-6 |
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| 2 | Hotel de Beauvais | |||||||||||||
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The HOTEL DE BEAUVAIS, at 68, in the same street, built for the Baronne de Beauvais in 1655. Catherine originally sold ribbons and, for reasons unclear, she became lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne d'Autriche, Louis XIII's wife. Worried about the impact of her husband's disinterest in the sex on their son, Anne seems to have confided in Catherine, which was a very ugly woman (nicknamed one-eyed Katie). Catherine didn't allow grass to grow over things and took things in her own hands (if we might say so :-):-)). |
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| 3 | Hotel de Montmorency | |||||||||||||
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The grand hotel was built in 1756 for the Comte de Montmorency-Bours, it illustrates very well Classical architecture. It has a beautiful interior staircase with a medallion of Louis XV, a plaster bust of Mirabeau and a statue of Napoleon. It was sold in 1776 to Pérusse Cars and confiscated during the French Revolution. It was acquired in 1808 by Marshal Lefebvre, whose wife was the famous Madame Sans-Genoa. It sold the hotel in 1821 without ever having been lived in. This hotel is now the headquarters of the Embassy of the Republic of Mali. |
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| 4 | Hotel Guimard | |||||||||||||
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At first view one is struck by the architect's care in designing and positioning his windows and balconies. Defying rhyme and reason, they are each of a different cut, each placed where one would least expect it:...the window on the third story, a quarter of which is situated on the precise corner of the building and which appears to be haughtily indifferent to the classically arranged bay on the story below. Of particular note in this regard is the long fourth-story balcony surmounted by two lanterns of the type frequently used by Guimard. |
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| 5 | Hôtel Bony & the Petit Hôtel Bourrienne | |||||||||||||
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After the Revolution, this neighborhood became known as the New Athens (note the Classical Greek reference). The magnificent houses built by wealthy businessmen and government officers became famous for intellectual salons. |
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| 6 | Hôtel Amelot de Gournay | |||||||||||||
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The Hôtel Amelot de Gournay at 1, rue Saint-Dominique near the Solférino Metro station was designed by Germain Boffrand in 1712 and acquired by Michel Amelot de Gournay the next year. Mr. Poisson notes that "this hôtel has several original features, most notably an oval forecourt," adding that "Boffrand's use of a colosssal order that rises the full height of the court façade gives the central block exceptional dignity. The garden façade also features a central curved wall, this one convex." |
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| 7 | House of Nicolas Flammel | |||||||||||||
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Nicolas Flammel was a wealthy bourgeois of the late Middle Ages. He and his wife Pernelle lived in this house and left the building to the City of Paris, as a dormitory for the poor. Impoverished Parisians were allowed to sleep in upstairs rooms on the condition that they recite prayers twice daily to save the Flammels’ souls. There is a big carved sign, probably added long after the building was constructed, which reads “Ici l’on boit et l’on mange” (here we eat and we drink) referring to the fact that the poor were fed and offered a beer before being escorted upstairs to sleep. |
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| 8 | Hôtel de Cluny, Musée du Moyen-Age | |||||||||||||
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The Musée de Cluny, officially known as Musée National du Moyen Âge, is a museum in Paris, France. It is located in the 5th arrondissement at 6 Place Paul Painlevé, south of the Boulevard Saint-Germain, between the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Rue Saint-Jacques. |
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| 9 | Hôtel Carnavalet (Musée Historique de la Ville de Paris) | |||||||||||||
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The vast Carnavalet Museum, devoted to the history of Paris, occupies two adjoining mansions (the Hôtel Le Peletier de St-Fargeau and the Hôtel Carnavalet). They include entire decorated rooms with panelling, furniture and many works of art. The main building, The Hôtel Carnavalet, was built as a town house in 1548 by Nicolas Dupuis. The Hôtel Carnavalet is a Renaissance jewel that in the mid-1600s became the home of writer Madame de Sévigné. The 17th century Hôtel le Peletier was added to the museum in 1989 to contain the larger part of the museum's 20th century interiors. |
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| 10 | Hôtel Lambert | |||||||||||||
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Hôtel Lambert is an hôtel particulier on Quai Anjou on the eastern tip of the Île Saint-Louis, Paris IVème; the name Hôtel Lambert was a sobriquet that designated a nineteenth-century political faction of Polish exiles, who gathered there. |
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| 11 | Hôtel de Sully | |||||||||||||
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This hôtel is often used as a shortcut by those in the know. The building is an early Parisian Baroque inspired by Flemish architecture. You can see how this has smaller windows and seems heavier than the Hôtel Lambert. But the design is ingenious because it links the main entrance on the crucial thoroughfare of Saint-Antoine with the aristocratic strolling-ground of Place des Vosges, called Place Royale at the time. This careful floor plan by Jean I Androuet du Cerceau seems effortless and logical when you stroll through the building—the courtyards are open to the public. |
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| 12 | Hôtel de Chenizot | |||||||||||||
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This fabulous mansion is impossible to miss when you walk down the central street of Isle Saint-Louis. The recently-cleaned and heavily-ornamented façade contains all the important features of Rococo. Notice the excessive detail and curvaceous playfulness, so different from the geometric shapes of Baroque. What’s particularly fascinating about this style is that it has a fresh, light feeling despite its overwrought decoration. |
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| 13 | Maison de Verre | |||||||||||||
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The Maison de Verre (French for House of Glass) was built from 1928 to 1931 in Paris, France. Constructed in the early modern style of architecture, the house's design emphasized three primary traits: honesty of materials, variable transparency of forms, and juxtaposition of "industrial" materials and fixtures with a more traditional style of home décor. The primary materials used were steel, glass, and glass block. Some of the notable "industrial" elements included rubberized floor tiles, bare steel beams,perforated metal sheet,heavy industrial light fixtures and mechanical fixtures. |
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| 14 | Villa Savoye | |||||||||||||
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The Villa Savoye is considered by many to be the seminal work of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. Situated at Poissy, outside of Paris, it is one of the most recognisable architectural presentations of the International Style. Construction was substantially completed ca. 1929. |
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