It was Parisien limestone compared to the UK local equivalents (such as Bath stone and ashlar) and relief friezes were carved to add decoration and marble floors were often designed to reflect or complement the ceiling designs, as was particularly a trend in Georgian interior design for Robert Adam in the UK.
Their use of stone was similar to many of the interiors of Georgian properties found in Spa towns such as Bath, Cheltenham and Harrogate.
He built hundreds of apartments into which he moved some 5,000 courtiers and aristocrats in order that he could more closely control their activities, handing out grace and favour as much as removing them in order to ensure he reigned supreme. Louis XIV added a chapel, an opera house (more of that later) and huge state apartments that were open to visitors during the day and used for parties and ceremonies throughput the year. Ultimately the extended palace created 2,300 rooms spread over 63,154 m2. It concluded in the lighter and more graceful neoclassical Louis XVI style completed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1768. It then became grander and more monumental, with the addition of the colonnades and flat roofs of the new royal apartments in the French classical or Louis XIV style, as designed by Louis Le Vau and later Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Louis XIV, who reigned from 1643 to 1715, built the Versailles Palace on the site of his father’s hunting lodge, a brick and stone chateau with sloping slate mansard roofs. Therefore, the church was no longer the main object this was a secular architecture, focused on the dwellings of the king and his court. The king had the absolute authority to decide what to do with the monies of the State, so no project was too expensive or ambitious to be commissioned. The king saw himself as the centre of the universe, as a ruler designated by God and all the power was in his hands this was especially true during the reign of Louis XIV. During the XVII and XVIII centuries, in France, the absolutist monarchy was at his highest. The style developed during the reigns of Louis XIII, XIV and XV is most commonly referred to as Baroque.īaroque was directly related to the social and economic context of that time. Not surprisingly they too were heavily influenced by the classical styles of Rome and Greece. How did they live, what were their aspirations and what drove the design and opulence of their interiors?įrench influences on Georgian interior design So, on a visit (before Lockdown!) to Versailles, I was interested to understand just what our closest European neighbours were up to at the time and what was influencing their architecture and interior design.
The influence of the grand architecture from Rome and Greece was resulting in the elegant designs of the day whilst the opening up of trade routes by the East India Trading Company brought fashions from the Far East and Asia to our interiors.
The UK was reaping the rewards of the Grand Tour taken by these (and many other) wealthy and highly educated gentleman. The three King Georges and the Prince Regent had the highly influential architects of the day from Robert Adam, John Wood the Elder and John Wood the Younger (here in Bath) to Sir John Soane and John Nash at their disposal. But we are always keen to learn about the influences on Georgian interior design. French interiors during new-found elegance of the Georgian eraĪs specialist Georgian interior designers, we’re pretty well-versed in what was going on in the UK in the 1700s and the early 1800s in terms of Georgian interiors and buildings.
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