LEMERCIER, Jacques

Cardinal Richelieu’s ambition was not limited to the building of a château at Richelieu. He wished also to found a town which should bear his name, and he therefore ordered Lemercier to prepare a completely new scheme according to which the village of Richelieu would be enlarged to a township planned and executed according to the most rational principles. This project was carried out, and Richelieu still stands today as one of the most consistent examples of town-planning on a small scale. The town forms a rectangular grid with a main street forming the long axis and connecting two squares, and the houses are of uniform design, built of brick with stone quoins. But Richelieu overlooked the fact that there was no good economic reason why there should be a town on that particular site, and though he used every means to persuade people from neighbouring districts to migrate to Richelieu, he had little success, and the town seems always to have been as deserted as it is today.

Lemercier was Richelieu’s architect. He built two ensembles designed to immortalize Richelieu - a college and a town. The college was the Sorbonne, renovated beginning in 1626, with a monumental chapel. The new town, called Richelieu, was organized around a symmetrical château set on a square plot toward which the main roads converged. The town turned out to be a utopian error, yet one typical of the rational voluntarism of that “heroic” age.

Jacques Lemercier was Richelieu’s architect. Around 1633, he designed the Palais-Cardinal (now Palais-Royal) in Paris, which featured spaces for Richelieu’s collections.

France’s first minister Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) built this stately complex to serve as his Parisian home. Located in the heart of Paris just a short distance from the Louvre, the Palais-Cardinal was under construction throughout the height of Richelieu’s career. Its large theatre, completed just before his death, was the best-equipped performance space in the city. Richelieu left his palace and its theatre to the royal family upon his death, making the Palais-Cardinal the Palais-Royal. It transferred hands several times and underwent numerous renovations, remaining one of the key performance sites in Paris for more than a century. Perhaps most notably, it served as the site of the public performances of Moli�re’s plays between 1661 and 1673. After 1673, the theatre became the site of the Paris Op�ra under the management of Moli�re’s rival Jean-Baptiste Lully.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 17 minutes):

Jean-Baptiste Lully: Le bourgeois gentilhomme, suite

The Louvre was still a heterogeneous collection of buildings when around 1624 Louis XIII took up the existing plan of enlarging the courtyard He had the Lescot wing doubled. In the middle of the newly extended wing, Jacques Lemercier built the Pavillon de l’Horloge. Its lower three levels followed the style set in 1550, but after 1640 it received an enormous dome over a fourth floor featuring windows flanked by pairs of caryatides designed by Jacques Sarazin. This was an important initiative, it not only honoured the old château, it also consecrated the dome as a Parisian form. A similar design was often chosen to enhance the entrance to châteaux.

The Louvre was still a heterogeneous collection of buildings when around 1624 Louis XIII took up the existing plan of enlarging the courtyard He had the Lescot wing doubled. In the middle of the newly extended wing, Jacques Lemercier built the Pavillon de l’Horloge. Its lower three levels followed the style set in 1550, but after 1640 it received an enormous dome over a fourth floor featuring windows flanked by pairs of caryatides designed by Jacques Sarazin. This was an important initiative, it not only honoured the old château, it also consecrated the dome as a Parisian form. A similar design was often chosen to enhance the entrance to châteaux.

The photo shows the west fa�ade of Cour Carr�e of the Louvre with the Pavillon de l’Horloge.

Originally called the Palais-Cardinal, the palace was the personal residence of Cardinal Richelieu. The architect Jacques Lemercier began his design in 1629; construction commenced in 1633 and was completed in 1639. Upon Richelieu’s death in 1642 the palace became the property of the King and acquired the new name Palais-Royal.

The photo shows the entrance front of the Palais-Royal on the rue Saint-Honor�.

Originally called the Palais-Cardinal, the palace was the personal residence of Cardinal Richelieu. The architect Jacques Lemercier began his design in 1629; construction commenced in 1633 and was completed in 1639. Upon Richelieu’s death in 1642 the palace became the property of the King and acquired the new name Palais-Royal.

The photo shows the entrance front of the Palais-Royal on the rue Saint-Honor�.

View the bird’s-eye view of the Palais Cardinal looking toward the north from the south side of the rue Saint-Honor�.

Hardouin-Mansart’s assistant, Fran�ois d’Orbay, prepared a general site plan, showing the Palais-Royal before the alterations by Jules Hardouin-Mansart were made.

The church of the Sorbonne (the university of Paris) is a centralized structure. Dominated by its dome, with a short transept, lengthened transverse arms, and side chapels, it has a similar ground plan to that of the Roman church of San Carlo ai Catinari.

The ground floor of the west fa�ade is dominated by massive Corinthian columns reinforced at the corners, but reduced to pilasters on the upper storey. Powerful entablatures emphasize the horizontal lines. A different design is used for the courtyard fa�ade; the stepped effect of the temple front, triumphal arch, hipped roof, and tambour dome give the picturesque effect of a stage set, a completely idiosyncratic combination of classical and Baroque elements.

The picture shows the west fa�ade.

View the ground plan of the church of the Sorbonne.

Lemercier’s Sorbonne remained faithful to Roman models, namely, the oeuvre of Giacomo della Porta.

The two-tiered frontispiece, whose triangular profile reflected the interior arrangement of central nave and aisles, had the notable advantage of enhancing the crowning dome, which would be a key element of the Parisian landscape. The dome featured in Lemercier’s most “Italian” church, namely, the chapel of the Sorbonne. The construction of a fa�ade with portico on the lateral courtyard gives this carefully proportioned composition its full impact. The rigorously symmetrical plan, framing the nave with perfectly orchestrated side chapels, represents an adaptation of strict Roman precepts.

The picture shows the lateral courtyard.

View the ground plan of the church of the Sorbonne.

The church of the Sorbonne (the university of Paris) is a centralized structure. Dominated by its dome, with a short transept, lengthened transverse arms, and side chapels, it has a similar ground plan to that of the Roman church of San Carlo ai Catinari.

The ground floor of the west fa�ade is dominated by massive Corinthian columns reinforced at the corners, but reduced to pilasters on the upper storey. Powerful entablatures emphasize the horizontal lines. A different design is used for the courtyard fa�ade; the stepped effect of the temple front, triumphal arch, hipped roof, and tambour dome give the picturesque effect of a stage set, a completely idiosyncratic combination of classical and Baroque elements.

The picture shows the courtyard fa�ade.

View the ground plan of the church of the Sorbonne.

The H�tel de Liancourt was a H�tel particulier (grand house) on the Rue de Seine in Paris built in 1623 for the Count of Liancourt. He bequeathed it to his nephew Fran�ois de La Rochefoucauld and in later maps and articles of Paris the house is sometimes described as the H�tel de la Rochefoucauld. The H�tel remained in the same family until the Revolution and was demolished in 1825.

This building is an example of Lemercier’s domestic works. It was built by Salomon de Brosse in 1613 and later enlarged to almost double its size by Lemercier in 1623. The enlargement of the site gave the architect the opportunity of an ingenious piece of planning. Seen from the street, the left half of the site was occupied by a base-court and a small garden, and the right half by a court forming the main approach to the house. The entrance was flanked on the court side by two quadrant wings, and the main building ran along the whole width of both courts. From the court the entrance to the house lay in the corner; it opened on the staircase and led through it to the vestibule on the garden.

The nineteenth-century engraving shows the fa�ade of the h�tel.

View the ground plan of the h�tel.

The Château de Richelieu (Indre-et-Loire) was an enormous 17th century château (castle, or manor house) built by the French clergyman, nobleman, and statesman Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) in Touraine. It was demolished for building materials in 1805 and almost nothing of it remains today.

The engraving shows the reconstruction of the fa�ade on the garden side.

The Château de Richelieu was of the usual form round three sides of a square court, with a low closing wall on the fourth; but in front of this spread a forecourt enclosed by two lines of offices. The entrance gate was set in a semi-circular wall with pavilions at the ends.

The engraving by Jean Marot represents the château from the garden side. It gives an idea of the general character of the ensemble, with the buildings of the office block in front of the château itself disappearing into the distance on the left. The construction of the château begun in 1631 and it was demolished in 1805. Of all the château there remained only two small garden grottos, the entrance gate, and one domed pavilion of the office block.