Maison
Monument
Maison, located in Lille (Nord), 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
- Lille, Nord, Hauts-de-France
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 50.6442, 3.0636
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00125629
In the heart of Old Lille, the houses at 12 and 14 rue Saint-François are a rare example of 17th-century civil architecture in Lille, when the city was under Flemish and Spanish influence.
History
In the labyrinth of narrow streets in Vieux-Lille, rue Saint-François boasts two houses that, by their very discretion, are a revelation to those who know how to look. Numbers 12 and 14 do not display the flamboyance of the grand patrician residences of the Grand-Place or the rue de la Monnaie: they offer something even more precious, the truth of seventeenth-century bourgeois architecture, as lived by wealthy craftsmen, second-rate merchants and local notables who were the lifeblood of a prosperous commercial town. What makes these houses so special is precisely their representative nature of a little-documented architectural type. Where private mansions have been the subject of exhaustive monographs, Lille's intermediate housing of the Grand Siècle remains a territory yet to be explored. These two façades are therefore an irreplaceable primary source for understanding how the city was constructed on a day-to-day basis, between Flemish traditions inherited from previous centuries and French influences gradually assimilated after Lille became part of the Kingdom of France in 1667. The attentive visitor will note the coherence of the volumes, the rhythm of the openings and the quality of the fixtures and fittings, typical of a local master builder perfectly at ease with his codes. This is far from a spectacular monument, but the beauty of these façades lies precisely in their constructive sincerity, in the absence of any representational effect: each stone, each brick tells the story of a way of living, not a way of looking. Listed as Historic Monuments since 1993, 12 and 14 rue Saint-François are part of a conservation area that makes Vieux-Lille one of the best-preserved pre-industrial architectural ensembles in northern France. Discovering them in their urban context, as you stroll between the baroque facades and courtyards, is a chance to get a close-up view of the texture of life in Lille under Louis XIV.
Architecture
The houses at 12 and 14 rue Saint-François illustrate an architectural style that was typical of the 17th-century bourgeoisie in Lille: buildings with narrow bays and discreet gables, in which local brick rubs shoulders with white limestone in the quoins and window frames. This combination of materials, inherited from the Flemish building tradition and repeated throughout French Flanders, gives the façades their characteristic colour palette, playing on the contrasts between the warm red of the brick and the luminous white of the ashlar. The layout of these townhouses follows the classic model of northern urban housing: a narrow footprint on the street, with rooms arranged in depth over several storeys. The elevations probably have two or three storeys over the ground floor, punctuated by cross or mullioned bays, the proportions of which still bear witness to a late Gothic influence that was evolving towards Classicism. The steeply pitched roofs, covered in slate in the Flemish tradition, contribute to the distinctive silhouette of Old Lille. The architectural value of these houses lies less in their decorative exuberance than in the coherence of their composition and the quality of their workmanship. They provide authentic evidence of the work carried out by Lille's masons and carpenters in the Grand Siècle, at a time when intermediate-rank civil architecture was still very poorly documented in written sources. In this respect, they are a useful complement to the large Baroque town houses in the Rue de la Monnaie and Place du Théâtre.
Related Figures
Louis XIV — roi de France qui s'empare de Lille en 1667 et transforme le destin de la villeSébastien Le Prestre de Vauban — ingénieur militaire qui fortifie Lille après 1667 et redessine son développement urbainPhilippe II d'Espagne — souverain sous lequel s'épanouit l'architecture hispano-flamande à Lille avant le rattachement à la FranceLes artisans-maçons lillois du XVIIe siècle — bâtisseurs anonymes de ce type d'habitat bourgeois intermédiaire
Tags
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison located?
Maison is located in Lille, Nord department, Hauts-de-France region, France.
When was Maison built?
Maison dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Maison open to visitors?
Maison is currently closed to visitors.