Architectural Posters of the French Provinces

Architecture in the French Provinces

These six architectural posters travel from the cathedral Gothic of Champagne and the papal palace at Avignon to the fortified silhouettes of Mont-Saint-Michel and Carcassonne. Two views of Notre-Dame at Reims and a comparative survey complete the group, forming a panorama of French architecture from the Middle Ages to the late twentieth century.

AP 562 and AP 019 · Notre-Dame, Reims

Construction of the present cathedral began in 1211 after fire destroyed its predecessor; the principal fabric was built in approximately six decades. Its west front unites architecture and sculpture with exceptional intimacy. Three deeply recessed portals, the great rose window and an openwork gallery of kings lead the eye towards the twin towers. Reims was also the coronation church of the French kings, making it both a building and an image of national history. AP 562 presents the façade in colour, emphasising its tracery, glazing and portals; AP 019 offers the same subject in a smaller format.

AP 419 · Notre-Dame, Reims, historical view of 1869

This historical drawing records the west front before the severe damage of the First World War and renders its extraordinary density of figure sculpture legible. Rather than behaving simply as a measured elevation, the sheet conveys the effect of the complete show front: portals, gables, rose, gallery of kings and towers read as one Gothic composition. Seen alongside AP 562, it also demonstrates how line, tonal modelling and colour can interpret the same building in markedly different ways.

AP 566 · Architecture Française, 1160–1990

This survey poster sets French monuments and building types from several centuries beside one another in comparative views. Sacred buildings and symbols of state – including Gothic cathedral fronts, the Arc de Triomphe and the dome of Les Invalides – meet châteaux, urban palaces and long Classical façades. The Louvre Pyramid finally introduces a contemporary accent in front of the historic palace. The arrangement thus makes change immediately visible: from medieval verticality through the symmetrical palace compositions of the Renaissance and Baroque to the deliberate dialogue between old and new architecture.

AP 564 · Palais des Papes, Avignon

When Avignon was the seat of the papacy in the fourteenth century, the present palace was built principally for Benedict XII and Clement VI in less than twenty years, from 1335 to 1352. Pierre Poisson directed the fortress-like Palais Vieux, while Jean de Louvres was responsible for major extensions to the more ceremonial Palais Neuf. Tall, largely unbroken walls and powerful towers give the complex the character of a citadel; chapels, audience rooms and once richly painted apartments served its religious and courtly life. AP 564 unfolds the long frontage as a precise architectural view.

AP 708 · Mont-Saint-Michel

On a rock in the tidal bay of Normandy, a sanctuary grew in which landscape, abbey, village and fortification became inseparable. Benedictine monks settled here in 966, and construction of the Romanesque abbey church began in 1023. From 1204, the Gothic “Merveille” rose on the steep north side, stacking halls, refectory and cloister on successive levels; supporting structures and crypts carry the ensemble above the irregular rock. AP 708 makes this vertical structure especially clear: houses and walls encircle the base, while monastic buildings and church rise towards the spire added in the nineteenth century.

AP 709 · Cité de Carcassonne

Carcassonne preserves an exceptionally complete system of medieval fortifications, developed on Late Antique walls and enlarged chiefly in the thirteenth century. Two circuits of ramparts with open lists between them enclose the town, castle and basilica; round towers, gates and barbicans articulate the defence in depth. From 1853, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc directed a prolonged restoration that shaped the present appearance and itself became an important chapter in the history of conservation. AP 709 places two panoramas together, allowing the structure, rhythm and contrasting sides of the extensive fortified city to be compared.