HARDOUIN-MANSART, Jules
(b. 1646, Paris, d. 1708, Marly-le-Roi)

Interior view

1679-87
Photo
Galerie des Glaces, Château, Versailles

In 1676 Hardouin-Mansart had begun work at the château of Versailles with designs for lodges in the Bosquet de la Renommée; each of these two square pavilions (destroyed) had bevelled interior angles, pediments on all four sides and were crowned by domes. Soon afterwards, in 1678, he was commissioned to design new additions for the château itself. His Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors) replaced Louis Le Vau's recessed first-floor terrace in the centre of the garden front, requiring Hardouin-Mansart also to redesign the entire garden façade to incorporate the projecting wings of Le Vau's scheme, which became the Salon de la Guerre and the Salon de la Paix. For this scheme he used round-headed windows on the first floor and a central hexastyle frontispiece based on Le Vau's lateral façades. Long north and south wings were then added in the same style but with a different rhythm in the projections. These additions have been criticized for destroying the scale and effect of Le Vau's building, but they provided Louis XIV with the grand ceremonial court setting that he sought, enhanced by the richness of the interior decoration by Charles Le Brun.




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