Hôtel particulier
Monument
Hôtel particulier, located in Roubaix (Nord), is a medieval landmark built in the Middle Ages. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Medieval (11th-15th century)
- Location
- Roubaix, Nord, Hauts-de-France
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 50.6838, 3.1702
- Mérimée Reference
- PA59000033
On Roubaix's former boulevard de Paris, seventeen bourgeois façades form an exceptional eclectic ensemble, an ostentatious masterpiece of the great 19th-century textile industry in Northern France.
History
In the heart of Roubaix, the former residential artery par excellence, Boulevard de Paris, boasts one of the most coherent and eloquent groups of private mansions in northern France. Between the Rue Colbert and the Rue Charles-Quint, seventeen facades display their bourgeois elegance in a rare architectural continuity, bearing witness to the economic apogee of a town that the industrial textile revolution had propelled to the rank of world capital of fabric. What immediately sets this ensemble apart is its paradoxical unity: although built for different families by different architects, these hotels form a remarkably homogenous urban façade. The great families of Roubaix's industry - spinners, merchants, textile shipowners - vied with each other in their decorative ambitions, all sharing the same architectural vocabulary, that of the historicist eclecticism so dear to the industrial north of France. Strolling past these façades is like strolling through a lexicon of stone carvings, all executed with astonishing virtuosity: elaborate keystones, finely chiselled spandrels, cartouches bearing the initials or coats of arms of those who commissioned them, triangular or arched pediments crowning the windows, decorative dormer windows piercing the slate roofs. Each detail tells the story of a success, an ambition, a desire to anchor in stone the social legitimacy of a rising industrial bourgeoisie. The whole complex takes on its full meaning in the light of Roubaix's urban history: the Boulevard de Paris, which runs along the town's old canal, was the prestigious promenade that the industrial elite made their own to display their residential splendour, far from the noise and fumes of the factories, but never far from the economic heartland that financed these magnificences. Listed as Historic Monuments since 1998, these hotels are an irreplaceable testimony to Roubaix society during the Belle Époque.
Architecture
The architecture of these private mansions is typical of the historicist eclecticism that characterised the industrial towns of northern France in the last quarter of the 19th century. This trend, which draws freely on the vocabularies of the French Renaissance and Classicism, is reflected here in a controlled decorative profusion: sculpted keystones topping the bays, spandrels adorned with floral or figurative motifs, cartouches bearing monograms and coats of arms, broken or triangular pediments crowning the main windows, and elaborate dormers enlivening the steeply pitched slate roofs. The facades, generally composed of three or more bays, are three or four storeys high, with the upper storeys treated with particular care. The ground floor, often enhanced by an ashlar base, features round-headed or straight-headed openings framed by pilasters. Limestone, probably imported from quarries in the Paris Basin or the Arras region, makes up most of the facades, while brick, a traditional material in the north of France, can be found in some of the infill or secondary sections. The steeply pitched roof, covered in natural slate, is systematically enlivened by pedimented dormers and elaborate chimney stacks. The seventeen facades that have been given monumental protection - numbers 52 to 88, excluding numbers 80 and 82, which are considered to have deteriorated too much - form an urban sequence around two hundred metres long, providing one of the most intact examples of 19th-century middle-class residential planning in the industrial north of France.
Related Figures
Dupire-Rozan — architecte roubaisien, maître d'œuvre de plusieurs hôtels de l'ensembleDupire-Deschamps — architecte roubaisien, co-concepteur du rang de façadesFamilles de filateurs et industriels textiles roubaisiens — commanditaires des hôtels (fin XIXe siècle)Gustave Mulliez — représentant du type de grandes dynasties industrielles qui habitèrent ce boulevardEugène Motte — industriel textile et figure politique roubaisienne de la Belle Époque
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Hôtel particulier located?
Hôtel particulier is located in Roubaix, Nord department, Hauts-de-France region, France.
When was Hôtel particulier built?
Hôtel particulier dates back to a period built in the Middle Ages (11th-15th century).
Is Hôtel particulier open to visitors?
Hôtel particulier is currently closed to visitors.