Immeuble
Monument
Immeuble, located in Arras (Pas-de-Calais), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Arras, Pas-de-Calais, Hauts-de-France
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 50.2909, 2.7787
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00108110
In the heart of Arras, this listed building epitomises Flemish civil architecture in all its splendour, with its Baroque facades with stepped gables and the golden sandstone arcades typical of the Grand'Place.
History
Arras is one of the towns in France where civil architecture has reached a rare level of refinement, and this listed building is one of the most eloquent examples of this. Nestling within an exceptional urban fabric dominated by the twin squares of the Grand'Place and the Place des Héros, it is part of a Flemish Baroque ensemble that is unique in France and recognised as one of the heritage gems of the north of the country. What makes this building truly unique is the way in which it illustrates Arras' prosperity as a merchant town in the 17th and 18th centuries. The town's wealthy clothiers and merchants competed in architectural daring to assert their social status through sumptuous facades adorned with pilasters, sculpted pediments and elaborate dormer windows. Each building thus became a statement of identity as much as a commercial tool, with the arcaded ground floor providing a sheltered trading area. Visitors are invited to raise their eyes to discover the wealth of sculpted details that run along the upper levels: mascarons, garlands, cartouches and coats of arms all combine in a decorative profusion characteristic of Brabant Baroque. The building interacts with its neighbours to form an architectural continuity of rare coherence, where bluestone and limestone meet in a subtle range of warm hues. The setting in Arras amplifies this sense of historical immersion. The two large paved squares, lined with 155 arcaded houses in the Grand'Place alone, offer an architectural panorama unrivalled in northern France. To visit this building is to plunge back into the golden age of a city that was, before Paris, one of the artistic and commercial capitals of northern Europe.
Architecture
The building is part of the Flemish and Brabant Baroque architectural vocabulary, a style that characterises the entire monumental area of Arras. Its facade spans several storeys, crowned by a stepped gable or arched pediment in the dominant style of the 17th and 18th centuries. The ground floor opens onto one or more basket-handle arches resting on stone pillars, allowing pedestrian traffic to be protected from the elements - a town-planning device inherited from medieval commercial practices and systematised in Arras. The upper storeys are carefully decorated, with pilasters with Doric or Ionic capitals framing the windows, baluster window sills, triangular or broken pediments topping the openings, and finely sculpted dormer windows in the steeply pitched roofs. Ashlar limestone, a creamy white that turns golden with age, is the dominant material, sometimes combined with local blue sandstone for the base and arcades. Inside, buildings of this type in Arras generally have a deep plan with a vaulted cellar (formerly a trading or storage room), a commercial ground floor and residential upper floors arranged around a wooden staircase with turned balusters. Beamed ceilings and moulded coffered ceilings, as well as marble or carved stone fireplaces, bear witness to the care lavished on the interiors by owners who were as concerned with their comfort as they were with their social status.
Related Figures
Louis XI — roi de France ayant reconquis Arras en 1477, impulsant la refondation urbaine de la villePierre Paquet — architecte en chef des monuments historiques, directeur de la reconstruction d'Arras après 1918Les drapiers et négociants arrageois des XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles — commanditaires des façades baroquesMaximilien de Robespierre — natif d'Arras (1758), ayant grandi dans ce type d'immeuble bourgeois arrageoisJean-Baptiste Lamarck — naturaliste arrageois (1744-1829), figure emblématique de la bourgeoisie locale de l'époque
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Immeuble located?
Immeuble is located in Arras, Pas-de-Calais department, Hauts-de-France region, France.
When was Immeuble built?
Immeuble dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Immeuble open to visitors?
Immeuble is currently closed to visitors.