Charles Garnier

Charles Garnier (1825-1898) was a French architect born in Paris. He entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1842 and won the Prix de Rome in 1848, which paid for study at the French Academy in Rome from 1849 to 1853, with travel to Greece and Constantinople. In 1861 he won the competition, announced by Napoleon III, for a new Paris opera house, from about 170 entries.

The Opéra, now called the Palais Garnier, was built from 1861 and opened on 5 January 1875. Work was slowed by groundwater found during excavation and stopped during the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune of 1870-1871. Garnier divided the building into three parts that can be read from outside: the entrance and foyers, the auditorium, and the stage. The grand staircase, built of colored marbles, rises through the center of the entrance block. An iron frame stands behind the stone facades, which carry paired columns, sculpture and gilded figures in a style drawn from Italian Renaissance and Baroque buildings. When Empress Eugénie asked what style it was, Garnier reportedly answered that it was Napoleon III style.

He later designed the concert hall of the Monte Carlo Casino (1878-1879), now the Salle Garnier, the Nice Observatory, the Cercle de la Librairie building in Paris and his own villa at Bordighera in Italy. He is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.