Empire Style
An architectural style in France from the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century. While the pre- and post-Revolutionary periods looked to republican Rome, Napoleon and his architects… were inspired by the forms and iconography of imperial Rome. Triumphal arches and columns were the most obvious manifestations of a highly symbolic, sometimes bombastic, form of Neoclassicism. While often heavy with imposing ornament, Percier and Fontaine’s work in and around Paris, at the Louvre, the Palais des Tuileries and the Chateau de Malmaison, constituted a fusion of Enlightenment-influenced principles of rationality with imperial iconography, creating an architecture of enduring resonance.
Defining characteristics include: Corinthian order, monumentality, spoliation, imperial symbolism, severity, and interiors.
Leading Examples:
- Bernard Poyet, portico, Palais Bourbon (new Assemblee Nationale), Paris, 1806-8
- Pierre-Alexandre Vignon, La Madeleine, Paris, 1807-42
- Charles Percier and Pierre-Francois-Leonard Fontaine, Arc de Triomphe de Carrousel, Paris, 1806-8