Detail View: Archivision Base to Module 9: Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève
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Preferred Title:
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Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève
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Image View:
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General view of interior, looking diagonally across space, from southeast
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Creator:
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Henri Labrouste (French architect, 1801-1875)
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Location:
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site: Paris, Île-de-France, France
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Date:
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1838-1851 (creation)
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Cultural Context:
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French
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Style Period:
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Neoclassical; Renaissance Revival
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Work Type 1:
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library (building)
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Classification:
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architecture
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Material:
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stone; iron
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Technique:
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construction (assembling)
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Subjects:
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architectural exteriors; arch
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Description:
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Labrouste finally received his first important public commission: the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Place du Panthéon, Paris. He worked for four years (1839-1842) on the design of the building, which was opened in 1851. He conceived the library as a sort of basilica in the Roman manner, with an elongated rectangular plan; the building is also reminiscent of a medieval monastic refectory and it has been compared to the refectory of the 13th-century St Martin-des-Champs, Paris. The main book stacks were placed on the ground-floor, expressed externally as a heavily rusticated base with small openings; above was placed the reading-room, with access via a staircase block projecting from the centre of the long, rear façade. The most striking feature of the Bibliothèque is the structure of the reading-room, where an exposed iron frame was used for the first time in a monumental building. The frame consists of decorated cast-iron arches and piers, with fireproof 'vaults' formed from latticework clad in plaster. (Sou
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Collection:
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Archivision Base Collection
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Identifier:
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1A1-LH-BS-C1
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Rights:
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© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.
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