The Palace of Longchamp Marseille : Marseille Tourism

Description

The Palais Longchamp is a beautiful nineteenth-century monument, of Second Empire style which can be visited in Marseille.

From the sixteenth century, the city of Marseille began to run out of water, so the project of digging a canal to the Durance was quickly raised. Moreover, in 1835 the inhabitants of Marseille suffered a major cholera outbreak which prompted the municipality to push the project. In 1838 the Franz Mayor plan of Pont et Chaussées, was accepted. The work began the following year. In total, to bring water along 85 km of canal, 18 bridges and aqueduct had to be built taking more than 10 years of work.

Since the early work on the canal, it had been decided to build a monument to the water of the Durance. A new project was then launched and the architect of the Basilica Notre-Dame de la Garde, Henry Espérandieu, was chosen. Soon the construction of the building, which would become one of the finest sights of Marseille, began and the Palais Longchamp was inaugurated in 1869.

This huge building hosts Marseille Museum of Fine Arts, the Natural History Museum and a zoological and botanical garden.

Richly decorated, its sculptures symbolize abundance and fertility of the canal water. This is the famous animal sculptor Antoine Louis Barye who designed the lions and tigers at the entrance. A huge fountain is in the center of the colonnade and represents the Durance in the guise of a woman, surrounded by Camargue bulls, grapes and wheat.

Copyright photo : Nariztocrata

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