Dossiers

An architectural jewel of the 1900 World Fair, the nave of the Grand Palais in Paris has been magnificently restored after four years of renovation. Closed since 1993, the Grand Palais briefly reopened this fall, bathed in a beautiful natural light streaming through the world’s largest glass roof. Described as “a rebirth rather than a reopening”, the event was organised by the French Minister of Culture and Communication, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, on the occasion of the European Heritage Days in September, when the general public was invited to rediscover the splendid venue.

To symbolise the nave’s vocation as a cultural beacon, the Minister organised a special two-week event featuring Coronelli’s renowned Globes, suspended beneath the central dome of the colossal glass and steel nave: two imposing spheres - a terrestrial globe and a celestial globe, weighing in at 2 tonnes each - commissioned by France’s ambassador to Rome for King Louis XIV and designed by Franciscan monk Vincenzo Coronelli. The globes were built in Paris in the 17th century.

The restored nave is not yet permanently reopened, as additional restoration work needs to be carried out, but various events (cultural exhibits, concerts, fashion shows) have been programmed up until September 2006. What’s certain is the venue’s vocation as a site combining “all the various facets of France’s cultural radiance”, based on the “alliance of contemporary creative achievements and the most emblematic elements of France’s cultural heritage”.

Built by four architects on the occasion of the 1900 World Fair, the Grand Palais is located at the bottom of the Champs-Élysées, near the edge of the Seine. The same architecture competition, held in 1896, also led to the construction of the Petit Palais, which now houses the Paris Fine Art Museum and is set to reopen soon after undergoing renovation.

An H-shaped structure boasting an immense glass and steel vault, a 200 m x 45 m nave built beneath the dome and a magnificent Art Nouveau ironwork staircase, the emblematic Grand Palais has had an eventful history. Originally intended to host art exhibitions, or salons artistiques - all the rage in the early 20th century - it also welcomed, in 1901, the first Automobile Show (an industrial sector in which France was then a pioneer) and has since served as the venue for more technological events, such as the first Aeronautics Salon (featuring hot-air balloons), the Childhood Fair, and the Household Arts Show, as well as agricultural shows, circuses, horse shows and even a ski run.

Throughout WWI, the Grand Palais sheltered colonial troupes heading to the front and later served as a hospital. Bombarded during WWII, the structure served as a truck depot, and was partially burned down in 1944 during the combat to liberate Paris. In the meantime, on the initiative of physicist Jean Perrin, a section of the building had been turned into a science museum: the Palais de la Découverte. In 1962, French Minister of Culture André Malraux decided to create the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, featuring major temporary exhibitions, in the building’s northern section.

Structural flaws began to appear very early on, and significant consolidation work was carried out from 1940 to 1943. Nonetheless, when in 1993, a bolt from the nave’s steel frame fell 35 metres to the ground at the feet of a flabbergasted visitor, drastic measures were taken and the nave was closed to the public in November 1993. Seven years later, the entire Grand Palais became a “Listed Building”. In November 2001, a major renovation project was begun to restore the building back its original splendour.

The nave’s steel framework - weighing in at 8,500 tonnes, compared to the Eiffel Tower’s 8,000 tonnes - was completely repaired and returned to its original colour, light reseda green. 110,000 sq.m of surface area were painted, 34,000 foundation piles were replaced as were 16,000 sq.m of glass. On the exterior, the roof was repaired, while the two quadrigas (four-horse chariots) sculpted by Georges Recipon, “Harmony Triumphing over Discord” and “Immortality Trumping Time”, located at the front corners of the building, were brought back to the site and re-assembled following their restoration. A second renovation phase, set to end in 2007, will concentrate on the façades, sculptures, ceramic decors and mosaics, as well as the decorative wrought iron work.

The public’s reaction to the nave’s exceptional reopening was very enthusiastic, and the two-week exhibit attracted some 500,000 visitors, all completely enchanted by the gleaming nave and Coronelli’s superb globes, suspended between heaven and earth and reflected on the ground via a series of inclined mirrors. At the end of the exhibit, the globes were transferred by night to the French National Library (BNF), where visitors will be able to admire them for a while until they too undergo extensive restoration.

Wriiten by Claudine Canetti
taken from Actualité en France series n°68/09(magazine of the ministry of Foreign Affairs)