Reading Response # 10- GRANDER INTERIOR SPACES

 The Paris Opera House

- Designed by Jean Louis Charles Garnier (1825-1898).

- Best known example of Beaux Arts Style.

- Source of the style was the teaching at Ecole Des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The main focus of the school was "...the simplest possible circulation into a building as well as the expression of the character of the function being housed (Roth,499)."

- Conservative style inspired by French classical architecture in the 17th and 18th centuries.

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Inside the Opera House at night. The lighting is making the space possess a sense of grander and elegance which made the common people feel respectable and gave them a sense of power.

"The interior decoration was marked by lavish use of carving, gilding, rich marble and extravagant lighting well suited to provide a atmosphere of Granger (Massey,13).

Even the interior of the Auditorium itself makes people feel the ornateness of the space and almost makes them feel like they have a higher class than just being the common people of the time. In today's society the Opera still holds this level of class and social hierarchy that is derived by the design of the building the opera is housed in.

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The Paris Opera House still stands as this iconic image of social rank and class and even inside the building itself cclass is shown by the stacking of the balconies on the sides of the space. Also the ornate carvings are more focused on the walls around the individual balconies and this elevated the people in them to a higher standing than thoes sitting in larges groups benieth them.  However the opera was originally a place of entertainment for the common people and that paralells the movies in our society today. The movie theaters are made to look like they are a special place through all the heavey textiles and moldings even down to the lighting. Overall the Paris Opera house serves as a rule book on how to design a space to elevate thoes who enter it and that elevation eventually elevates the building itself and the activitie within it over time.

[sources]
Massey Chapter 2

studyabroad.duke.edu

spad1.wordpress.com
terencegilbert.com