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West Wing Expansion of the Palace of Versailles

Type Object Region France Time 1661

The west wing expansion of Versailles was the core stage in Louis XIV's transformation of his father's hunting lodge into Europe's grandest palace.

Timeline

  1. 1661–1668Versailles, France · FranceSoon after taking personal rule, Louis XIV began expanding the hunting lodge of his father Louis XIII. Landscape architect André Le Nôtre began overall planning of the great gardens; the first garden works included laying out the transverse Grand Canal and the formal French parterres, providing the reference axis for the future west facade of the palace and establishing the unified conception of palace and garden.
  2. 1668–1671central block of the Palace of Versailles · FranceFirst architect Louis Le Vau proposed the 'enveloppe' scheme, wrapping the old hunting lodge on three sides with new stone facades to form a stone shell (Enveloppe) facing the great western gardens, using Italian-influenced flat-roofed attics and Corinthian pilaster decoration. This phase established the overall outline of the palace's central block and included the preliminary layout of the king's private apartments on the second floor.
  3. 1671–1678Palace of Versailles and its great gardens · FranceIn the 1670s Le Nôtre vigorously advanced the Grand Canal and the transverse garden works to the west, with fountains, sculpture groups, and clipped hedges gradually put in place. After Le Vau's death his assistant Charles Le Brun directed the interior decoration, forming the preliminary layout of the royal apartments; Louis XIV frequently resided at Versailles, and court culture took shape, providing a model for the next phase of large-scale wing expansion.
  4. 1678–1689north and south wings and Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles · FranceJules Hardouin-Mansart succeeded Le Vau and completed the Hall of Mirrors (Galerie des Glaces) between 1678 and 1684: 357 mirror panes corresponding to 17 full-height arched windows, 73 meters long, a pinnacle of European court architecture. The south wing (1678–1682) and north wing (1685–1689) were then completed, extending the west facade to about 580 meters, giving the palace an unparalleled scale. In 1682 Louis XIV formally moved the court to Versailles.

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