In 1894 a competition was held for the 1900 Exhibition area. The Palais de l'Industrie from the 1855 World’s Fair was considered unfitting and was to be replaced by something new for the 1900 Exhibition. Architects had the option to do what they pleased with the Palais de l’Industrie. In the end, Charles Girault won the competition and built the Petit Palais as one of the buildings that replaced the Palais de l’Industrie. The construction of the Petit Palais began on October 10, 1897 and was completed in April 1900. The total cost of the Petit Palais at the time of the construction was 400,000 pounds.
Inspiration
Charles Girault largely draws on the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century French style for the Petit Palais. Additionally his work, such as the domed central porch and the triple arcade, has many references to the stables at Chantilly.
Plan of the Building
Girault’s plan for the Petit Palais had minimal alterations from the design to the execution. The plan was original and fit perfectly in its given location. The Petit Palais is a trapezoid shape with its larger side as the main façade facing the Grand Palais. The building’s shape makes a semi-circular courtyard at the center.
Architecture
The Beaux-Arts style Petit Palais was designed by Charles Girault, and is around an octi-circular courtyard and garden, similar to the Grand Palais. Its ionic columns, grand porch, and dome echo those of the Invalides across the river. The tympanum depicting the city of Paris surrounded by muses is the work of sculptor Jean Antoine Injalbert. The Petit Palais was built to be a lasting building that would become a permanent fine arts museum after the exhibition. The materials of the building—stone, steel, and concrete as well as the decoration were to demonstrate that the Petit Palais was built to be enduring.
Exterior
Main Façade
The main façade of the building faces the Grand Palais. The focal point of the façade is the central entrance: “a central archway set in an archivolt topped by a dome and reached by a broad set of steps”. Two wings flank the main entrance. These wings, continuing to the end pavilions, are embellished with free-standing columns that frame the tall windows.
Pavilions
The exterior of the pavilions are embellished with arched windows from the side around to the rear façades. These grand windows provide side lighting for the outer three galleries of the interior museum.
Decoration
The exterior of the Petit Palais was embellished with many contemporary sculptures. Several famous sculptors at the time, such as Convers, Desvergens, Fagel, Ferrary, Hugues, Injalbert, and Peynot, worked on the exterior decoration of the building.
Interior
Courtyard
The trapezoidal shape of the Petit Palace forms an open area at the center of the building. This enclosed area creates a semicircular, peristyled courtyard. The architecture of the courtyard incorporated many different architectural elements. The elegant courtyard is considered Beaux Arts style because of the “symmetrical composition” and “rich decoration in high relief”. Coupled columns made of pink Vosges granite and gilt-bronze encircle the courtyard and bordering covered gallery. Although the courtyard is in the central part of the Petit Palais, one of the main structures of the Exhibition, its purpose was to provide visitors with a relaxing space apart from the busy Exposition.
Museum
The museum is split into two levels with two series of rooms running parallel and juxtaposed. The interior of the Petit Palais was designed to create exhibition spaces “suited to every aspect of a collection: the outer galleries for objects, the inner, skylit ones for paintings, the lower galleries for reserves and the entrance rotunda and main gallery for sculptures”. The entrance rotunda and main gallery was especially grand. The floors were tiled with mosaics, the walls were lined with marble, and the dome and vaults were filled with allegorical paintings.
As a whole the architecture of the 1900 Exhibition was not well received however, reactions to the Petit Palais were generally positive. Some people even claimed that the Petit Palais had the “power to educate the mind while it pleases the senses”. King Leopold II of Belgium was very impressed with Girault's execution of the Petit Palais. This admiration started a "fruitful collaboration between monarch and architect". Girault was commissioned to build several structures including: "the Arcade du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, extensions at the Royal Castle of Laeken, and a seafront colonnade at Ostend". The Petit Palais has served as a model for other public buildings, notably for the Royal Museum for Central Africa located in Tervuren, Belgium; and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile.
