Decided implementation, designed at the Second Empire of which it marks the urban planning of Hausmannian Paris, Charles Garnier’s Opera is however completed by the Third Republic whose building illustrates the taste for refined eclecticism. The many plans drawn and engraved produced by Charles Garnier and his agency, throughout the gestation of a pharaonic project, allows us to follow the aesthetic developments, leading from design to completion.
The publication is an event because it specifically examines the corpus of plans and drawings related to construction. Detailed, complete, the drawings deserve this dedicated edition, true works of art which explain the elements of taste of each diet. Each plan, section, elevation (and also models, etc.) allows us to understand the functioning of the buildings, their destination, etc. circulation in public spaces; in addition to the presentation of the architects’ work during the competition of 1860 – 1861, most of which was impressively precise (drawing of the facades, etc… funds where Garnier’s project still cannot be found!), we follow the progress of the site step by step …until the summer of 1870 when the declaration of war and the fall of the Empire brought the work to a complete halt.
The plans of Charles Garnier (winner of the Competition of 1861), preserved for the most part at the Opera Library-Museum (Music Department of the National Library of France), as the architect had expressed the desire, but also at the École nationale supérieure des beaux -arts, in the fund bequeathed by the widow of the architect, (and at the Media Library of Heritage and Photography) constitutes an invaluable graphic heritage.
The publication selects the most important drawings; presents them in an architectural logic: exteriors (with the different facades) and interiors (Vestibule, Grand Staircase, Avant-foyer, Grand Foyer, subscriber spaces, spaces provided for the Emperor, performance hall, dance foyer, etc.) , so many specific spaces which give credence to the idea of an architecture that is both majestic and…utilitarian. The decor nevertheless orchestrates in its general excess, – in which all the trades and artistic crafts participate, a new aesthetic rationality as evidenced (among others) by the scandalous sculpted group of the Carpeaux Danceinaugurated with considerable fanfare in the summer of 1869.
The opening notice introduces each of the sections and presents the documents while contextualizing them. Several unfinished projects which mark a stage in Garnier’s thought, are presented in the work to understand Garnier’s architectural thought from the inside, towards more refinement, pragmatism, towards a balance between functionality and splendor (decor of the centers of Dance and Song, etc.). All work here to clarify the genesis of an exceptional project in the history of Paris and for the Second Empire which was finally to be realized in 1875when the first shows are presented.
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BOOK REVIEW event. OPERA GARNIER: drawings for a masterpiece. Publication: Dec 2024 – Authors: Mathias Auclair – Prefaces by Alexander Neef (general director of the Paris National Opera) and Gilles Pecout (president of the National Library of France) – Dimensions: 32.1 cm x 24.1 cm x 1.6 cm – 144 pages – EAN: 9782353404117 – GOURCUFF GRADENIGO editions (December 2025)
Information on the publisher’s website Gourcuff Gradenigo : http://www.gourcuff-gradenigo.com/librairie/index.php?id_product=332&controller=product&id_lang=1
MORE INFO and online purchase, directly on the Paris Opera boutique website: https://boutique.operadeparis.fr/fr/product/294333-opera-garnier-dessins-pour-un-chef-oeuvre.html
