Palais Garnier

Splendid sculptures on L'Opera in Paris. This opera is famous for the phantom that lived there (Phantom of the Opera; Andrew Lloyd Weber). It was built on the orders of Napoleon III as part of the great Parisian reconstruction project carried out by Baron Haussmann. The project was put out to competition and was won by Charles Garnier (1825-1898), a then unknown 35-year-old architect. He would go on to also build the Opera Garnier de Monte-Carlo in Monaco. Building work, which began in 1857 and finished in 1874, was interrupted by numerous incidents, including the Franco-Prussian War, the fall of the Empire and the Paris Commune. Another problem was the discovery of an underground lake beneath the site. This required the construction of an underground reservoir below the building. This lake later inspired The Phantom of the Opera's lair. The Palais Garnier was formally inaugurated on January 15, 1875.
© 2004 onwards by Dr Himanshu Tyagi. All the photographs in this blog are copyright protected and can not be reproduced or stored in any medium without the written permission from Dr Himanshu Tyagi.