Marcel Breuer at the Cité de l’Architecture

Tomorrow opens a new exhibition on the great twentieth-century architect, Marcel Breuer, at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris.

After presenting Henri Labrouste, the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine skips forward a century and presents another great architect who may not be among the best known to the general public, but who is revered within the profession.

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Henri Labrouste

Henri Labrouste is not among nineteenth century architects best known by the general public. He is, however, one of architects’ favorite architects of the period. Last week an exhibition dedicated to Labrouste opened at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine. An opportunity, hopefully, to bring Labrouste to his rightful prominence.

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Paris’s Architecture Museum: La Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine

Tourists parade by all day past the doors of the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine. Inside, unbeknownst to them, is a sizable and very worthwhile architecture museum. If you are a curious traveler to Paris, I can only encourage you to push the door of the Palais du Trocadéro and discover what is inside.

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The Hôtel Particulier: A Parisian Ambition

The hôtel particulier is an urban private mansion, standing most often away from the street, between a courtyard and a garden. There are fewer than 500 of these houses in Paris today, but there were as many as 2,000 in the seventeenth century. An exhibition that opened this week at the Cité de l’Architecture retraces the history of this fascinating building type, so important to Paris’s history and character. This exhibition and the splendid book that accompanies it are a real delight for anyone with interest in the subject. Continue reading The Hôtel Particulier: A Parisian Ambition