The architecture of Provence includes a rich collection of monuments from the Roman era, Cistercian monasteries from the Romanesque period, medieval castles and fortifications, as well as numerous hilltop villages and fine churches. Provence was a very poor region after the 18th century, but in the 20th century it had an economic revival and became the site of one of the most influential buildings of the 20th century, the Unité d'Habitation of the architect Le Corbusier in Marseille.
Provence, in the southeast corner of France, corresponds with the modern administrative region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and includes the departments of Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, as well as parts of Alpes-Maritimes and Vaucluse. The original comté de Provence extended from the west bank of the Rhone River to the east bank of the Var river, bordering the comté of Nice. Provence culturally and historically extended further west of the Gard to Nîmes and to the Vidourle river.
Remains of a prehistoric settlement dating to between 27,000 and 19,000 BC were found by divers in 1991 at the Cosquer Cave, an underwater cave in a calanque on the coast near Marseille. [1]
A neolithic site dating to about 6000 BC. was discovered in Marseille near the current Saint Charles railway station, which has remains of walls made of baked clay with holes for posts, as well as tools.
Marseille was founded in about 546 BC by Greek colonists coming from the city of Phocaea (now Foça, in modern Turkey) on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, who were fleeing an invasion by the Persians. They called their settlement Massalia.
Traces of the original settlement have been found on the west side of the butte Saint-Laurent in Marseille. The original settlement extended to the east toward the butte des Moulins and finally the butte des Carmes, covering about fifty hectares. The size of the original settlement were not exceeded until the 17th century.
Remains of the ancient Phocaean fortifications of Massalia dating to the end of the 7th century BC can be seen in the Jardin des Vestiges and on the butte des Carmes. In the 2nd century BC the entire system of fortifications were rebuilt in pink limestone. Parts of the ramparts can still be seen in the Jardin des Vestiges. [2]
According to the historian Strabo and other ancient sources, the city of Massalia had temples to Apollo and Artemis, but no trace of them remains. The only remaining structure from ancient Massalia are the cellars of Saint-Sauveur, near the Place de Lenche in Marseille. They probably served as either a granary or an arsenal. [3]
The Phocaeans also established colonies at Nice, Arles, Cannes and south of Nîmes. Later the region was also inhabited by Celts, who were also known as the Liguress or Celto-Ligurians. who built oppida , or forts. Little trace remains of their architecture. [4]
In the 2nd century BC, the Romans began their conquest of the region, sending legions which defeated the Ligurians and destroyed their fortresses. In 123 BC the Romans founded Aquae Sextiae, and two years later began a new town at Nemausa (today Nîmes.) The Roman colony known as provincia was organized in about 120 BC. A Roman road, the Via Domitia, named for Roman Consul Domitius Ahenobarbus, was built to connect Rome with the Pyrenees, following the path of the old Greek Way of Hercules. It led to a great expansion of commerce in the region.
In the 1st century BC, Roman legions completed the conquest of Gaul and began building towns, triumphal arches, amphitheatres, theatres, public baths and aqueducts in Provence.
The Roman aqueduct of Pont du Gard (1st century AD), built during the time of the Emperor Claudius, is one of the most impressive examples of Roman civil engineering. Fifty meters above the Gardon, it is the highest existing Roman aqueduct. The aqueduct carried water a distance of fifty kilometres.
The Triumphal Arch of Orange at Orange, Vaucluse, was probably built to honor the veterans of the 11th legion in about twenty BC, during the time of the Emperor Augustus, and was later dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius. It was designed to show travellers to the new Roman province the superiority and power of Rome.
The triumphal arch near the Roman town of Glanum, just outside Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, shows Roman soldiers leading away defeated prisoners. It was constructed between 10 and 25 AD, sometime after the Romans had conquered the town, which was inhabited by Celto-Ligurians. Glanum was destroyed in 260 AD. by the Alamanni, a Germanic tribe, as the Roman Empire began to crumble.
The Roman theatre in Orange, Vaucluse, was constructed by the Emperor Augustus in the early 1st century BC, is the best-preserved Roman theatre in Europe. It was closed by the authorities of the Christian church in 391 because of its "barbaric spectacles" and not re-opened until the 19th century. Today, it is the home of music and theatre festivals.
The Arles Amphitheatre was built in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, when Arles was the capital of Roman Provence. It was used for combat by gladiators and other spectacles. It has a diameter of 102 meters, and could hold twelve thousand spectators.
The Maison Carrée in Nîmes, built in 16–19 BC, is one of the best-preserved Roman temples in the former Roman Empire. It survived intact because it was converted into a Christian church in the 4th century AD. It was built according to the principles of Vitruvius, the chief theoretician of ancient Roman architecture. In the early 19th century, it was chosen as the model for the church of the Madeleine in Paris.
In 380 AD, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and Christian churches, cathedrals and monasteries were founded all across Provence. Sometimes Roman temples, such as the temple at Nîmes, were turned into churches. Often churches were built on the sites of Roman temples or fora (Arles and Aix-en-Provence) and used columns, such as the columns in the baptistery at Fréjus, and other elements of Roman temples.
Many of the churches were built in a new style, later called Romanesque, which combined Gallo-Roman architectural elements with elements of a new style coming from Lombardy in Italy. It was particularly influenced by the new churches in the Byzantine style in Ravenna. The Romanesque architecture of Provence and the valley of the Rhône had some regional decorative elements, borrowed from the Gallo-Romans, particularly the use of eagles and busts, traditional ancient Roman elements, to decorate the capitals of Corinthian columns. [5]
The baptistery of the Fréjus Cathedral (406–409 AD), built shortly before the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, is the oldest Christian structure in Provence, and one of the oldest buildings in France. The octagonal building, about seven metres across, is covered by a dome set on arches supported by columns. In the center of the building is an octagonal baptismal font 1.3 meters deep and 92 centimetres long, large enough for the person baptized to be immersed in the water. It was only discovered in 1925, hidden behind later modifications to the church, and restored. [6]
Montmajour Abbey (French: Abbaye Notre Dame de Montmajour) is a fortified Benedictine monastery built between the 10th and 13th century on what was then an island five kilometres north of Arles, in the Bouches-du-Rhône département . The Abbey is famous for its 11th–14th century graves, carved in the rock, its subterranean crypt, and its massive unfinished church. It was an important pilgrimage site during the Middle Ages, and in the 18th century it was the site of a large Maurist Monastery, now in ruins.
In the 12th century, monks of the Benedictine Order broke away to form a new order, the Cistercians, who adhered strictly to the rules of St. Benedict. Cistercian monasteries were located in remote valleys next to rivers, were devoted to prayer, meditation, and manual labor, and were built following religious principles to avoid anything that would distract the monks from their prayers.
Sénanque Abbey was the first Cistercian monastery founded in Provence in 1148. The church was finished in 1178. A small community of monks still lives in the Abbey. The lavender fields around the Abbey make it one of the most photographed spots in Provence.
Thoronet Abbey, in a remote valley near Draguignan, in the Var department, was founded in 1160. The cloister is among the oldest Cistercian cloisters still existing. Le Corbusier visited the monastery in 1953 and imitated the play of light and shadow in his priory of Sainte Marie de La Tourette, near Lyon. It also influenced the modern monastery by John Pawson at Nový Dvůr Monastery, in the Czech Republic. Thoronet Abbey is now a museum open to visitors.
Silvacane Abbey was founded in 1175, the third of the Cistercian monasteries known as the Three Sisters of Provence. It is located by the Durance River at La Roque-d'Anthéron, between Avignon and Aix-en-Provence. It is open to the public, and is the only one of the three that no longer serves a religious purpose. It hosts prestigious piano and vocal music festivals.
The Church of St. Trophime (Trophimus) is a Roman Catholic church and former cathedral built between the 12th century and the 15th century in the city of Arles, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department. The sculptures over the portal, particularly the Last Judgment, and the columns in the adjacent cloister, are considered some of the finest examples of Romanesque sculpture. The church was built upon the site of the 5th century basilica of Arles, named for Saint Stephen. [7] In the 15th century a Gothic choir was added to the Romanesque nave.
Aix Cathedral (Cathédrale Saint-Sauveur d'Aix) in Aix-en-Provence shows the transition from Romanesque to Gothic architecture. It is built on the site of the 1st century Roman forum of Aix, and was re-built from the 12th until the 19th century; it includes Romanesque, Gothic and Neo-Gothic elements, as well as Roman columns and parts of the baptistery from a 6th-century Christian church.
The Gothic architecture style was invented in the middle of the 12th century with the facade of the Basilica of Saint-Denis in Paris, and spread rapidly to England and Germany, but did not arrive in Provence until the late 13th century.
The first purely Gothic church in Provence was the Basilica Sainte Marie-Madeleine in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, which was begun in 1295. It was built to contain what was believed to be the sarcophagus of Mary Magdalene, which was discovered in a Gallo-Roman crypt in Saint-Maximin in 1279. The basilica was consecrated in 1316, but the Black Death in 1348, which killed half the local population, interrupted construction. Work started again in 1404, and the sixth bay of the nave was completed in 1412. Work continued until 1532, when it was decided to leave the basilica just as it was, with an unfinished west front, and neither a portal nor bell towers. The church today has a main apse flanked by two subsidiary apses. The nave has no transept, and is flanked by sixteen chapels in the aisles. In the crypt is displayed what is said to be the skull of St. Mary Magdalene.
In other parts of Provence, Romanesque churches were transformed into Gothic ones. In Aix-en-Provence, two new wings of the transept of Aix Cathedral were built in the Gothic style between 1285–1230, and the cathedral was turned bay by bay into a Gothic church, paralleled the growth of importance of Aix. In Arles, a Gothic choir replaced the Romanesque apse of the Church of St. Trophime between 1445 and 1465. [8]
The finest Gothic building in Provence was the Palais des Papes in Avignon, which became the residence of the Popes when Pope Clement V moved the Papal Curia to Avignon, a period known as the Avignon Papacy. The Palace was one of the largest and most important buildings in Europe. Construction was begun by Pope Benedict XII and continued by his successors. The construction of the 10-acre (40,000 m2), heavily fortified palace consumed most of the income of the papacy during this period. It served as the residence of two antipopes, Clement VII and Benedict XIII, before the papal court finally returned permanently to Rome. While the outside of the palace looked like a fortress, the inside was lavishly decorated with tapestries, sculptures, and decorated wooden ceilings.
The Pont d'Avignon, also known as the Pont Saint-Bénézet, which crossed the Rhône River between Avignon and Villeneuve-lès-Avignon became one of the wonders of the medieval world. The Romans had built a wooden bridge across the Rhône at the same point, which was replaced by a stone Romanesque bridge built between 1177 and 1185. That bridge, except for four arches, was swept away by a flood in 1226. A new bridge was constructed in the Gothic style between 1234 and 1237, which was 900 metres long, resting on 22 arches. A chapel to Saint Nicholas, with two chapels, one Romanesque and the other Gothic, was located on the bridge fourth arch, where a toll was collected from voyagers in the form of a donation to the Saint.
During the Middle Ages the Avignon bridge was the only bridge across the Rhône between Lyon and the mouth of the Rhône. It was also located on one of the main pilgrimage routes between Italy and Saint-Jacques-Compostelle. The bridge began to collapse in the 17th century, first one arch in 1603, then three more in 1605. These were repaired, but in 1669 a new flood carried away most of the bridge, leaving only four arches. [9]
As Roman authority crumbled in Provence, the region was flooded with invaders: Visigoths in the 5th century, Franks in the 6th century and Arabs in the 8th century, and raids by Berber pirates and slavers. Rule eventually passed to the Counts of Toulouse and the Counts of Barcelona (later Kings of Aragon).
Because of the repeated invasions, Provençal architecture was designed to resist attack. Monasteries were surrounded by towers and walls, and even the bishop's residence in Fréjus resembled a fortress. Castles on hilltops surrounded by walled towns became the characteristic architectural feature of Provence. Only in the 17th century, after the Wars of Religion had ended and the French king had established his authority, were the towns of Provence safe from outside attack.
The village of Roussillon, Vaucluse, in the Luberon area, has vestiges of a 10th-century château and an 11th-century church. It is famous for its pinkish and yellow stone; in the 18th century, mines around the town produced pigment to make the color ochre.
Les Baux-de-Provence, on a high rocky hilltop in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, was inhabited as early as 6000 BC. and had a Celtic fort in the 2nd century AD. In the Middle Ages, the Lords of Les Baux, who claimed ancestry back to Balthazar, one of the Three Kings of the Nativity, ruled over a domain of 79 towns and villages. The Counts were deposed in the 12th century, the last princess died in the 15th century, and the town became part of France. In 1632, when the town became a Protestant stronghold, Cardinal Richelieu ordered castle and town walls destroyed.
Gordes, in the Vaucluse, was originally a hilltop fort of the Celtic tribe of the Vordenses, then a Roman fort guarding the Roman road between Carpentras and Apt. A castle was built by Guillaume d'Agoult in the 9th century, which dominated the valley. In the 13th century, the town joined Savoy in a war against France. In the 14th century, during the Hundred Years' War, the whole town was encircled by strong walls. In 1481, after the death of René I of Naples, Gordes was incorporated into France.
After Marseille was annexed to France by Francois I in 1481, the Château d'if (1527–1529) was built on one of the islands of the Frioul archipelago in the Bay of Marseille to protect the city from attacks from the sea, and was soon turned into a prison. During the Wars of Religion (1562–1598), it held some 3500 Huguenots, or French Protestant prisoners. It is best known as the prison of the fictional Count of Monte Cristo of Alexandre Dumas, père.
The Château of Tarascon, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, was begun in 1400 by Louis II of Anjou, and finished by his son, René.
The Citadel of Sisteron, was built on a rocky spur overlooking the Durance River on the strategic route through the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea. A Roman fort and a feudal castle first occupied the site. Then, from 1590 to 1597, Jean Erard, the military architect of king Henry IV, built a new kind of fortification designed to defeat armies with cannons and modern weapons. It featured walls laid out in a sawtooth pattern of recesses and salients, so all parts of the wall could be covered by gunfire; terraces and trenches to slow approaching armies; and interior walls and fortified gates to subdivide the fortress and prevent attackers from capturing it all in one attack. Many of these features were adapted and improved a century later by the military architect Vauban.
The age of Louis XIV in Provence was marked by an increase in prosperity, after the destructive Wars of Religion in the previous century. The citizens of Arles built a new Hôtel de ville (town hall), designed by the Arles architect Jacques Peytret aided by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, which had a large central court with a perfectly smooth vaulted ceiling, without a central column, supported entirely by the carefully joined stones resting on fine Doric columns. The Hôtel de ville symbolized the rise of the power of the bourgeoisie and showed that civil architecture could be as beautiful and powerful as religious architecture or royal palaces. [9]
The Toulon Opera, built in the flamboyant style of the French Second Empire, was begun at the same time as the Paris Opéra of Charles Garnier, and illustrated the importance of Toulon as the main base of the French Navy. The architect was Léon Feuchère. Construction was begun in 1860, and it opened in 1862. It boasted exceptional acoustics and seats for 1800 spectators, making it, after Paris, the second-largest opera house in France.
The Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde in Marseille was built between 1853 and 1864 on the highest point in the city in the neo-Byzantine style. It was finished ten years before its famous sister, the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur in Paris, was begun. It was designed by the architect Henri-Jacques Espérandieu. The main feature of the church is a 197-foot (60 m) belfry with a statue of the Virgin and Child, visible miles out to sea.
The rural architecture of Provence features two distinctive types of farmhouses, the mas and the bastide.
A mas a largely self-sufficient economic unit, which could produce fruits, vegetables, meat, milk, and even silk. The house was usually built of local stone with a sloping Roman tile roof, and was a long rectangle, two or three stories high, with the kitchen and space for animals on the ground floor, and bedrooms, storage space for food, and often a room for raising silkworms on the first floor. As the family grew larger, the mas would be extended to make new rooms. The mas nearly always faced the south, to provide protection from the Mistral and it had few and very small windows, to keep out the summer heat and to keep in the heat in winter. [10] [11]
A bastide was the house of a wealthier farmer, and usually was in the shape of a square, with an interior courtyard. In the 19th and 20th centuries many bastides were occupied by wealthy city residents from Marseille.
The Unité d'habitation in Marseille, also known as the Cité radieuse de Marseille, designed by the architect Corbusier in 1946-1952, became one of the most influential buildings of the 20th century. Built of unfinished concrete (steel was not available because of the war), it had nineteen stories with 330 apartments of twenty different designs, along with shops, a restaurant, a hotel, clinic, sports facilities, a roof terrace, an outdoor auditorium, and a kindergarten. It was meant to be "a machine for living," with everything needed under a single roof. Corbusier built five versions of the Unité d'habitation, and it inspired similar buildings in other parts of France, Germany and in Britain; it became a model for new apartment buildings and public housing projects in the 1950s. It was praised and much criticized as the first example of Brutalist architecture. [12]
Other buildings by Corbusier in Provence:
Notable 20th-century buildings in Provence include:
The Gare d'Avignon TGV is a new passenger train station, built on the LGV Méditerranée high-speed train line in South-eastern France, inaugurated in 2001. It was designed by the cabinet of architecture of the SNCF under the direction of Jean-Marie Duthilleul and Jean-François Blassel. Its Gothic arches echo the most famous landmark in Avignon, the Palais des Papes.
Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It largely corresponds with the modern administrative region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and includes the departments of Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, as well as parts of Alpes-Maritimes and Vaucluse. The largest city of the region and its modern-day capital is Marseille.
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe that was predominant in the 11th and 12th centuries. The style eventually developed into the Gothic style with the shape of the arches providing a simple distinction: the Romanesque is characterized by semicircular arches, while the Gothic is marked by the pointed arches. The Romanesque emerged nearly simultaneously in multiple countries ; its examples can be found across the continent, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman architecture. Similarly to Gothic, the name of the style was transferred onto the contemporary Romanesque art.
Arles is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of Provence.
Montmajour Abbey, formally the Abbey of St. Peter in Montmajour, was a fortified Benedictine monastery built between the 10th and 18th centuries on what was originally an island five kilometers north of Arles, in what is now the Bouches-du-Rhône Department, in the region of Provence in the south of France.
Pre-Romanesque art and architecture is the period in European art from either, the emergence of the Merovingian kingdom in about 500 AD or from the Carolingian Renaissance in the late 8th century, to the beginning of the 11th century Romanesque period. The term is generally used in English only for architecture and monumental sculpture, but here all the arts of the period are briefly described.
French art consists of the visual and plastic arts originating from the geographical area of France. Modern France was the main centre for the European art of the Upper Paleolithic, then left many megalithic monuments, and in the Iron Age many of the most impressive finds of early Celtic art. The Gallo-Roman period left a distinctive provincial style of sculpture, and the region around the modern Franco-German border led the empire in the mass production of finely decorated Ancient Roman pottery, which was exported to Italy and elsewhere on a large scale. With Merovingian art the story of French styles as a distinct and influential element in the wider development of the art of Christian Europe begins.
The Church of St. Trophime (Trophimus) is a Roman Catholic church and former cathedral located in the city of Arles, in the Bouches-du-Rhône Department of southern France. It was built between the 12th century and the 15th century, and is in the Romanesque architectural tradition. The sculptures over the church's portal, particularly the Last Judgement, and the columns in the adjacent cloister, are considered some of the finest examples of Romanesque sculpture.
The LGV Méditerranée is a 250-kilometre-long (160-mile) French high-speed rail line running from north to south between Saint-Marcel-lès-Valence, Drôme and Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, also featuring a connection to Nîmes, Gard to the west.
Thoronet Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey built in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, now restored as a museum. It is sited between the towns of Draguignan and Brignoles in the Var Department of Provence, in southeast France. It is one of the three Cistercian abbeys in Provence, along with the Sénanque Abbey and Silvacane, that together are known as "the Three Sisters of Provence."
Aix Cathedral in Aix-en-Provence in southern France is a Roman Catholic church and the seat of the Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence and Arles. The cathedral is built on the site of the 1st-century Roman forum of Aix. Built and re-built from the 12th until the 19th century, it includes Romanesque, Gothic and Neo-Gothic elements, as well as Roman columns and parts of the baptistery from a 6th-century Christian church. It is a national monument of France.
Silvacane Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery in the municipality of La Roque-d'Anthéron, Bouches-du-Rhône, in Provence, France. It was founded in or around 1144 as a daughter house of Morimond Abbey and was dissolved in 1443; it ceased to be an ecclesiastical property in the French Revolution. The church was acquired by the French state in 1846, the remaining buildings not until 1949. It is one of the three Cistercian abbeys in Provence known as the "three sisters of Provence", the other two being Sénanque Abbey and Le Thoronet Abbey; Silvacane was possibly the last-established.
Lambesc is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southern France.
French architecture consists of architectural styles that either originated in France or elsewhere and were developed within the territories of France.
Aurons is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southern France.
Trets is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur region in the southeast of France. With a population of over 10,000, it is one of 44 communes in the Aix-en-Provence arrondissement or district. It is often described as a medieval town because of its development during the Middle Ages of European history and retention of medieval architecture.
The historic French province of Provence, located in the southeast corner of France between the Alps, the Mediterranean, the river Rhône and the upper reaches of the river Durance, was inhabited by Ligures beginning in Neolithic times; by the Celtic since about 900 BC, and by Greek colonists since about 600 BC. It was conquered by Rome at the end of the 2nd century BC. From 879 until 1486, it was a semi-independent state ruled by the Counts of Provence. In 1481, the title passed to Louis XI of France. In 1486 Provence was legally incorporated into France. Provence has been a part of France for over 400 years, but the people of Provence, particularly in the interior, have kept a cultural identity that persists to this day.
The architecture of Switzerland was influenced by its location astride major trade routes, along with diverse architectural traditions of the four national languages. Romans and later Italians brought their monumental and vernacular architecture north over the Alps, meeting the Germanic and German styles coming south and French influences coming east. Additionally, Swiss mercenary service brought architectural elements from other lands back to Switzerland. All the major styles including ancient Roman, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Art Nouveau, Modern architecture and Post Modern are well represented throughout the country. The founding of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne in La Sarraz and the work of Swiss-born modern architects such as Le Corbusier helped spread Modern architecture throughout the world.
Romanesque architecture appeared in France at the end of the 10th century, with the development of feudal society and the rise and spread of monastic orders, particularly the Benedictines, which built many important abbeys and monasteries in the style. It continued to dominate religious architecture until the appearance of French Gothic architecture in the Île-de-France between about 1140 and 1150.
The Church of the Saintes Maries de la Mer is a Romanesque fortified church built in the 9th century in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in Camargue, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence. Dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus and to The Three Marys, it is the subject of annual Roma pilgrimage. Since 1840, it has been classified as a French Historical Monument.