PARIS OPÉRA The Baroque style also found favor in 19th-
century architecture because it was well suited to conveying a grandeur
worthy of the riches the European elite acquired during this age of ex-
pansion. The Paris Opéra (FIG. 30-46), designed by Charles Gar-
nier(1825–1898), mirrored the opulence that permeated the lives of
these privileged few. The opera house has a festive and spectacularly
theatrical Neo-Baroque front and two wings resembling Baroque
domed central-plan churches. Inside, intricate arrangements of corri-
dors, vestibules, stairways, balconies, alcoves, entrances, and exits facil-
itate easy passage throughout the building and provide space for enter-
tainment and socializing at intermissions. The Baroque grandeur of
the layout and of the building’s ornamental appointments is charac-
teristic of an architectural style called Beaux-Arts,which flourished in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries in France. Based on ideas taught
at the dominant École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris,
the Beaux-Arts style incorporated classical principles (such as sym-
metry in design, including interior spaces that extended radially from
a central core or axis) and included extensive exterior ornamentation.
As an example of a Beaux-Arts building, Garnier’s Opéra proclaims,
through its majesty and lavishness, its function as a gathering place for
fashionable audiences in an era of conspicuous wealth. The style was
so attractive to the moneyed classes who supported the arts that the-
aters and opera houses continued to reflect the Paris Opéra’s design
until World War I transformed society.
CAST-IRON CONSTRUCTION Work on Garnier’s Opéra
began in 1861, but by the middle of the 19th century, many archi-
tects had already abandoned sentimental and Romantic designs
from the past. They turned to honest expressions of a building’s pur-
pose. Since the 18th century, bridges had been built of cast iron (FIG.
29-11), and most other utilitarian architecture—factories, ware-
houses, dockyard structures, mills, and the like—long had been built
simply and without historical ornamentation. Iron, along with other
industrial materials, permitted engineering advancements in the con-
struction of larger, stronger, and more fire-resistant structures than
before. The tensile strength of iron (and especially of steel, available
after 1860) permitted architects to create new designs involving vast
enclosed spaces, as in the great train sheds of railroad stations and in
exposition halls.
SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE LIBRARY The Bibliothèque Sainte-
Geneviève (1843–1850), built by Henri Labrouste(1801–1875), is
an interesting mix of Renaissance revival style and modern cast-iron
construction. Its two-story facade with arched windows recalls Re-
naissance palazzo designs, but Labrouste exposed the structure’s
metal skeleton on the interior. The lower story of the library housed
the book stacks. The upper floor featured a spacious reading room
(FIG. 30-47) consisting essentially of two barrel-vaulted halls,
roofed in terracotta and separated by a row of slender cast-iron
columns on concrete pedestals. The columns, recognizably Corin-
thian, support the iron roof arches pierced with intricate vine-scroll
ornament out of the Renaissance architectural vocabulary. La-
brouste’s design highlights how the peculiarities of the new struc-
tural material aesthetically altered the forms of traditional masonry
architecture. But it also makes clear how reluctant the 19th-century
architect was to surrender traditional forms, even when fully aware
of new possibilities for design and construction. Architects scoffed at
“engineers’ architecture” for many years and continued to clothe
their steel-and-concrete structures in the Romantic “drapery” of a
historical style.
CRYSTAL PALACE Completely “undraped” construction first
became popular in the conservatories (greenhouses) of English
country estates. Joseph Paxton(1801–1865) built several such
structures for his patron, the duke of Devonshire. In the largest—30-46Charles Garnier,the
Opéra, Paris, France, 1861–1874.
For Paris’s opera house, Garnier
chose a festive and spectacularly
theatrical Neo-Baroque facade
well suited to a gathering place
for fashionable audiences in an
age of conspicuous wealth.812 Chapter 30 EUROPE AND AMERICA, 1800 TO 1870