Pharo Palace
The Palais du Pharo is a palace in Marseille that was built by Napoleon III from 1858 . for his wife Eugénie de Montijo .
history
During one of his visits to Marseille in 1851, as President of France, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte expressed the desire to build a residence in the city. The community quickly showed its willingness to do so when the Prince-President offered a million francs equity. The amount was used to buy the land.
Shortly before Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte became Napoleon III in 1851 . When he became emperor, he commissioned the Geneva architect Samuel Vaucher to look for a suitable location for the imperial residence. Vaucher proposed a site opposite Fort Saint-Jean with a view of the port and the bay of Marseille and presented his plans in February 1853. They were redesigned by the architect Hector Lefuel . The construction is similar to that of the Villa Eugénie in Biarritz , construction of which began in 1854.
The community needed just under 1.2 million francs to purchase the land. Construction began on August 15, 1858, the birthday of Napoleon Bonaparte . The progress of construction was slowed down by lack of money and delivery difficulties of stone due to the simultaneous construction of the cathedral of Marseille . In August 1861, Vaucher was blamed for the delay in the work and was replaced by Henri-Jacques Espérandieu , who also completed the Marseille Cathedral. The sculptors François Gilbert, Vittoz and Simon were entrusted with the interior and facade decoration.
When Napoleon III fell In 1870 the palace was not completed after twelve years of construction; the imperial couple never lived there.
After Napoleon III.
After the fall of the regime, opponents of Napoleon III attacked. Symbols of the empire; in particular, the crowd destroyed Napoleonic emblems and ornaments that adorned the facade of the building.
When the emperor died in 1873, the city of Marseille filed a lawsuit against the former empress. This leads to a process at the end of which Eugenie decided in 1884 to offer the castle and its gardens to the city, provided they are used for charitable purposes.
Until the end of the 19th century, the building served as a hospital for cholera and tuberculosis. The buildings on the side of the promenade were occupied by the Medical Faculty in 1890. In 1905 the Institute for Tropical Medicine was established there for the health of the army. It has been the seat of the University of Aix-Marseille since 2012.
The palace now houses a convention center; for this purpose, underground rooms were added under the gardens. The administrative headquarters Communauté urbaine Marseille Provence Métropole is also housed in one building.
Next to the palace is the Monument to the Heroes and Victims of the Sea, which is a listed building.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Catherine Granger: La liste civile de Napoléon III: le pouvoir impérial et les arts, Thèse de doctorat en histoire de l'art , Revue d'histoire du XIXe siècle 22 , 2001, ISSN 1265-1354
- ↑ Marseille: au Pharo, la médecine rend les armes. May 24, 2013, accessed October 1, 2019 (French).
Coordinates: 43 ° 17 ′ 39.1 ″ N , 5 ° 21 ′ 29.2 ″ E