La Casa Rosada (Buenos Aires)

La Casa Rosada

The Pink House is the executive mansion and office of the President of Argentina. The palatial mansion is known officially as Casa de Gobierno, ("House of Government" or "Government House"). Normally, the President lives at the Quinta de Olivos, the official residence of the President of Argentina, which is located in Olivos, Buenos Aires Province. The characteristic color of the Casa Rosada is baby pink, and is considered one of the most emblematic buildings in Buenos Aires. The building also houses a museum, which contains objects relating to former presidents of Argentina. It has been declared a National Historic Monument of Argentina.

History

The Casa Rosada sits at the eastern end of the Plaza de Mayo, a large square which since the 1580 foundation of Buenos Aires has been surrounded by many of the most important political institutions of the city and of Argentina. The site, originally at the shoreline of the Río de la Plata, was first occupied by the "Fort of Juan Baltazar of Austria", a structure built on the orders of the founder of Buenos Aires, Captain Juan de Garay, in 1594. Its 1713 replacement by a masonry structure (the "Castle of San Miguel") complete with turrets made the spot the effective nerve center of colonial government. Following independence, President Bernardino Rivadavia had a Neoclassical portico built at the entrance in 1825, and the building remained unchanged until, in 1857, the fort was demolished in favor of a new customs building. Under the direction of British Argentine architect Edward Taylor, the Italianate structure functioned as Buenos Aires' largest building from 1859 until the 1890s.

The old fort's administrative annex, which survived the construction of Taylor's Customs House, was enlisted as the Presidential offices by Bartolomé Mitre in the 1860s and his successor, Domingo Sarmiento, who beautified the drab building with patios, gardens and wrought-iron grillwork, had the exterior painted pink reportedly in order to defuse political tensions by mixing the red and white colours of the country's opposing political parties: red was the color of the Federales, while white was the color of the Unitarians. An alternative explanation suggests that the original paint contained cow's blood to prevent damage from the effects of humidity. Sarmiento also authorized the construction of the Central Post Office next door in 1873, commissioning Swedish Argentine architect Carl Kihlberg, who designed this, one of the first of Buenos Aires' many examples of Second Empire architecture.

Presiding over an unprecedented socio-economic boom, President Julio Roca commissioned architect Enrique Aberg to replace the cramped State House with one resembling the neighboring Central Post Office in 1882. Following works to integrate the two structures, Roca had architect Francesco Tamburini build the iconic Italianate archway between the two in 1884. The resulting State House, still known as the "Pink House", was completed in 1898 following its eastward enlargement, works which resulted in the destruction of the customs house.

A Historical Museum was created in 1957 to display presidential memorabilia and selected belongings, such as sashes, batons, books, furniture, and three carriages. The remains of the former fort were partially excavated in 1991, and the uncovered structures were incorporated into the Museum of the Casa Rosada. Located behind the building, these works led to the rerouting of Paseo Colón Avenue, unifying the Casa Rosada with Parque Colón (Columbus Park) behind it. Plans were announced in 2009 for the restoration of surviving portions of Taylor's Customs House, as well.

See: wikipedia

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after Greater São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the continent's southeastern coast. The Greater Buenos Aires conurbation, which also includes several Buenos Aires Province districts, constitutes the third-largest conurbation in Latin America, with a population of around fifteen and a half million.

The city of Buenos Aires is neither part of Buenos Aires Province nor the Province's capital; rather, it is an autonomous district. In 1880, after decades of political infighting, Buenos Aires was federalised and removed from Buenos Aires Province. The city limits were enlarged to include the towns of Belgrano and Flores; both are now neighborhoods of the city. The 1994 constitutional amendment granted the city autonomy, hence its formal name: Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (Autonomous City of Buenos Aires). Its citizens first elected a Chief of Government (i.e. Mayor) in 1996; before, the Mayor was directly appointed by the President of the Republic.

Buenos Aires is, along with Mexico City and São Paulo, one of the three Latin American cities considered an 'alpha city' by the study GaWC5. Buenos Aires, Argentina has the third best quality of life of Latin American cities. Buenos Aires' quality of life is ranked 81st in the world, with its per capita income among the three highest in the region. It is the most visited city in South America (ahead of Rio de Janeiro) and the second most visited city across Spanish Latin America (behind Mexico City). It is also one of the most important, largest and most populous of South American capitals, often referred to as the Paris of South America.

Buenos Aires is a top tourist destination, and is known for its European-style architecture and rich cultural life, with the highest concentration of theatres in the world. Buenos Aires held the 1st Pan American Games in 1951 and the city also had two venues in the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Buenos Aires will host the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics.

People from Buenos Aires are referred to as porteños (people of the port). The city is the birthplace of pope Francis (former Archbishop of Buenos Aires), and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.

See: wikipedia

Side view of Hôtel de Ville

Hôtel de Ville

The Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) in Paris, France, is the building housing the city's local administration. Standing on the place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville (formerly place de Grève) in the city's IVe arrondissement, it has been the location of the municipality of Paris since 1357. It serves multiple functions, housing the local administration, the Mayor of Paris (since 1977), and also serves as a venue for large receptions.

History

In July 1357, Étienne Marcel, provost of the merchants (i.e. mayor) of Paris, bought the so-called maison aux piliers ("House of Pillars") in the name of the municipality on the gently sloping shingle beach which served as a river port for unloading wheat and wood and later merged into a square, the Place de Grève (French for "Square of the Strand"), a place where Parisians often gathered, particularly for public executions. Ever since 1357, the City of Paris's administration has been located on the same location where the Hôtel de Ville stands today. Before 1357, the city administration was located in the so-called parloir aux bourgeois ("Parlour of Burgesses") near the Châtelet.

In 1533, King Francis I decided to endow the city with a city hall which would be worthy of Paris, then the largest city of Europe and Christendom. He appointed two architects: Italian Dominique de Cortone, nicknamed Boccador because of his red beard, and Frenchman Pierre Chambiges. The House of Pillars was torn down and Boccador, steeped in the spirit of the Renaissance, drew up the plans of a building which was at the same time tall, spacious, full of light and refined. Building work was not finished until 1628 during the reign of Louis XIII.

During the next two centuries, no changes were made to the edifice which was the stage for several famous events during the French Revolution (notably the murder of the last provost of the merchants Jacques de Flesselles by an angry crowd on 14 July 1789 and the coup of 9 Thermidor Year II when Robespierre was shot in the jaw and arrested in the Hôtel de Ville with his followers). Eventually, in 1835, on the initiative of Rambuteau, préfet of the Seine département, two wings were added to the main building and were linked to the facade by a gallery, to provide more space for the expanded city government. The architects were Étienne-Hippolyte Godde and Jean-Baptiste Lesueur.

During the Franco-Prussian War, the building played a key role in several political events. On 30 October 1870, revolutionaries broke into the building and captured the Government of National Defence, while making repeated demands for the establishment of a communard government. The existing government was "rescued" by soldiers who broke into the Hôtel de Ville via an underground tunnel built in 1807, which still connects the Hôtel de Ville with a nearby barracks. On 18 January 1871, crowds gathered outside the building to protest against speculated surrender to the Prussians, and were dispersed by soldiers firing from the building, who inflicted several casualties. The Paris Commune chose the Hôtel de Ville as its headquarters, and as anti-Commune troops approached the building, Communards set fire to the Hôtel de Ville destroying almost all extant public records from the French Revolutionary period. The blaze swallowed the building from the inside, leaving only an empty stone shell.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction of City Hall lasted from 1873 through 1892 (19 years) and was directed by architects Théodore Ballu and Édouard Deperthes, who had won the public competition for the building's reconstruction. Ballu also designed the Church of La Trinité in the 9th arrondissement and the belfry of the town hall of the 1st arrondissement, opposite the Louvre's east facade. He also restored the Saint-Jacques Tower, a Gothic church tower in a square 150 metres to the west of the Hôtel de Ville.

The architects rebuilt the interior of the Hôtel de Ville within the stone shell that had survived the fire. While they rebuilt Hôtel de Ville –from the outside– a copy of the 16th-century French Renaissance building that stood before 1871, the new interior was based on an entirely new design, with ceremonial rooms lavishly decorated in the 1880s style.

The central ceremonial doors under the clock are flanked by allegorical figures of Art, by Laurent Marqueste, and Science, by Jules Blanchard. Some 230 other sculptors were commissioned to produce 338 individual figures of famous Parisians on each facade, along with lions and other sculptural features. The sculptors included prominent academicians like Ernest-Eugène Hiolle and Henri Chapu, but easily the most famous was Auguste Rodin. Rodin produced the figure of the 18th-century mathematician Jean le Rond d'Alembert, finished in 1882.

The statue on the garden wall on the south side is of Étienne Marcel, the most famous holder of the post of prévôt des marchands (provost of the merchants) which predated the office of mayor. Marcel was lynched in 1358 by an angry mob after trying to assert the city's powers too energetically.

The decor featured murals by the leading painters of the day, including Raphaël Collin, Jean-Paul Laurens, Puvis de Chavannes, Henri Gervex, Aimé Morot and Alfred Roll. Most can still be seen as part of a guided tour of the building.

Political venue

Since the French Revolution, the building has been the scene of a number of historical events, notably the proclamation of the French Third Republic in 1870 and the famous speech by Charles de Gaulle on 25 August 1944 during the Liberation of Paris when he greeted the crowd from a front window.

The Hôtel de Ville was for many years the fief of Jacques Chirac, France's president from 1995 until May 2007, and was the site of a scandal centering on both illegal jobs given to Chirac's party members and an extravagant entertainment budget.

The current mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, a socialist and the city's first openly gay leader, shares some of Marcel's ambition and almost shared his fate. He was stabbed in the building in 2002 during the first all-night, city-wide Sleepless Night (Nuit Blanche) festival when the doors of the long-inaccessible building were thrown open to the public. But Delanoë recovered and has not lost his zeal for access, later converting the mayor's sumptuous private apartments into a crèche (day nursery) for the children of municipal workers.

See: wikipedia

Palais du Luxembourg

Luxembourg Palace

The Luxembourg Palace in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, north of the Luxembourg Garden, is the seat of the French Senate.

The formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and provided with large basins of water where children sail model boats. In the southwest corner, there is an orchard of apple and pear trees and the théâtre des marionnettes (puppet theatre).

Early history

The palace was built as a royal residence for Marie de Médicis, mother of king Louis XIII of France and of Gaston, duc d'Orléans, just near the site of an old hôtel particulier owned by François-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Piney-Luxembourg, which is now called the Palais du Petit-Luxembourg, home of the president of the French Senate.

Marie de Médicis desired to make a building similar to her native Florence's Palazzo Pitti, and to this effect had the main architect Salomon de Brosse send architect Clément Metézeau to Florence to obtain drawings. Marie de Médicis bought the structure and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, which she referred to as her Palais Médicis, in 1615. Its construction and furnishing formed her major artistic project, though nothing remains today of the interiors as they were created for her, save some architectural fragments reassembled in the Salle du Livre d'Or. The suites of paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her requirements through her agents and advisors, are scattered among museums.

Marie de Médicis installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued. The apartments in the right wing on the western side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite to the east, for her son, Louis XIII, when he was visiting.

A series of twenty-four triumphant canvases commissioned from Peter Paul Rubens were installed in the Galerie de Rubens on the main floor of the western wing. A series of paintings executed for her Cabinet doré ("gilded study") was identified by Anthony Blunt in 1967. Construction was finished in 1631; the Queen Mother was forced from court shortly after, following the "Day of the Dupes" in November 1631. Louis XIII commissioned further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne.

In 1642, Marie bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second and favourite son, Gaston d'Orléans, who called it the Palais d'Orléans, but by popular will it was still known by its original name.

Upon Gaston's death, the palace passed to his widow, Marguerite de Lorraine, then to his elder daughter by his first marriage, Anne, duchesse de Montpensier, La Grande Mademoiselle. In 1660, Anne de Montpensier sold the Luxembourg to her younger half-sister, Élisabeth Marguerite d'Orléans, duchesse de Guise who, in turn, gave it to her cousin, king Louis XIV, in 1694.

In 1715, the palace became the residence of Marie Louise Elisabeth d'Orleans, Duchess of Berry (1695-1719). The widowed Duchess was notoriously promiscuous, having the reputation of a French Messalina, relentlessly driven by her unquenchable thirst for all pleasures of the flesh. The Luxembourg palace and its gardens thus became stages where the radiantly beautiful princess acted out her ambitions, enthroned like a queen surrounded by her court. In some of her more exclusive parties, Madame de Berry also played the leading part in elaborate "tableaux-vivants" that represented mythological scenes and in which she displayed her appetizing young person impersonating Venus or Diana. According to various satirical songs which scurrilously evoked her amours „the Lady of the Luxembourg” hid several pregnancies, shutting herself up from society when about to give birth. Her taste for strong liquors and her sheer gluttony also scandalised the court. On 21 May 1717, Madame de Berry received Peter the Great at the Luxembourg. She welcomed the visiting Tsar splendidly dressed in a magnificent sack-back gown which showcased her voluptuous bosom as well as her mischievous face but also helped conceal her growing corpulence for she was then in an "interesting condition".

On 28 February 1718, the Duchess of Berry threw a magnificent party for her visiting aunt, the Duchess of Lorraine. The entire palace and its gardens were elaborately illuminated. The lavish banquet was followed by a masked ball. Madame de Berry made a dazzling appearance before her guests. She was then in the full splendor of her youthful beauty and pride and acted as if she were the very incarnation of the goddess of love, mirth, beauty and sensual pleasures. However, just over one year after this magnificent moment of festive glory, the Luxembourg palace became the stage of a shameful tragicomedy which ended in the harrowing demise of the haughty princess. The tempestuous life of Madame de Berry, the "Venus of the Luxembourg Palace", soon met a premature end. On 2 April 1719, after a grueling four-day labour, shut up in a small room of her palace, the young widow was delivered of a stillborn baby-girl, supposedly fathered by her lieutenant of the guards, the Count of Riom. Ill-prepared by her debauchery and raucous behavior, Berry's delivery was extremely troublesome and almost killed her. The Church refused her the Sacraments thus adding moral infamy to the physical tortures of the labouring woman. Saint-Simon wrote a very sarcastic description of this scandalous childbirth. Hoping to regain her health and undeceive the public that she had been confined, Madame de Berry left Paris and the Luxembourg palace. She died in her castle at La Muette on 21 July 1719 and, according to Saint-Simon, was found to be again pregnant.

In 1750, the palace became a museum—the forerunner of the Louvre—, and was open two days a week until 1779. In 1778, the palace was given to the comte de Provence by his brother Louis XVI. During the French Revolution, it was briefly a prison, then the seat of the French Directory, and in 1799, the home of the Sénat conservateur and the first residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul of the French Republic..

Palace as parliament

From 1799 to 1805 the architect Jean Chalgrin transformed the palace into a legislative building. He demolished the grand central staircase (escalier d'honneur), replacing it with a senate chamber on the first floor, which incorporated and destroyed Marie de Médicis' chapel on the garden side of the corps de logis. Chalgrin also enclosed the flanking terraces, making space for a library. At the same time he created a neo-classical escalier d'honneur in the west wing, a single monumental flight enclosed by an ionic colonnade and covered with a coffered barrel vault, the construction of which resulted in the destruction of the long gallery that had formerly housed the cycle of paintings by Rubens.

Beginning in 1835 the architect Alphonse de Gisors added a new garden wing parallel to the old corps de logis, replicating the look of the original 17th-century facade so precisely that it is difficult to distinguish at first glance the old from the new. The new senate chamber was located in what would have been the courtyard area in-between.

The new wing included a library (bibliothèque) with a cycle of paintings (1845–1847) by Eugène Delacroix. In the 1850s, at the request of Emperor Napoleon III, Gisors created the highly decorated Salle des Conférences (inspired by the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre), which influenced the nature of subsequent official interiors of the Second Empire, including those of the Palais Garnier.

During the German occupation of Paris (1940–1944), Hermann Göring took over the palace as the headquarters of the Luftwaffe in France, taking for himself a sumptuous suite of rooms to accommodate his visits to the French capital.

His subordinate, Luftwaffe Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, was also given an apartment in the Luxembourg palace, and spent most of the war enjoying the luxurious surroundings. "The Field Marshal's craving for luxury and public display ran a close second to that of his superior, Goering; he was also his match in corpulence", wrote armaments minister Albert Speer after a visit to Sperrle in Paris.

The palace was a designated "strong point" for German forces defending the city in August 1944, but thanks to the decision of Commanding General Dietrich von Choltitz to surrender the city rather than fight, the palace was only minimally damaged.

From 29 July to 15 October 1946, the Luxembourg Palace was the site of the talks of Paris Peace Conference.

See: wikipedia