ARCHITECTURE
599
architectural pylons, with their accompanying sculpture, I in progress for many years, from the designs of which flank the entries to the bridge, are worthy of the 1 the late M. Abadie, and in the year 1900 was still unfinished. In church architecture generally France has not shone very much during the latter part of the century • all her finest modern classic churches .date from before the war. Among smaller French buildings of peculiar merit may be mentioned the Musee Galliera, in the Trocadero quarter of Paris, designed by M. Ginain—a work of pure art in architecture such as we should nowadays look for in vain out of France ; the Ecole de Medecine, by the same refined architect (Fig. 25); and the chapel in Rue Jean Goujon (Guilbert), erected as a memorial to the victims of the bazaar fire, again a notable instance of a work of pure thought in architecture—a new conception out of old materials. The new Opera Comique (Bernier) should also be mentioned (Fig. 26), the rather disappointing result of a competition which excited great interest at the time. Street architecture has been carried out of late in Paris in a sumptuPig. 26.—Opera Comique, Paris. (Bernier.) ous style (Fig. 27), with great stone fronts best period of French Renaissance. Thus much, at least, has the 1900 exhibition done for architecture. At the beginning of our period stands one of the most important of modern French buildings, the Paris Hotel de Ville, commenced shortly after the war, from the designs of MM. Ballu and Deperthes, planned on an immense scale, and on the stateliest and most monumental lines (Figs. 22, 23). The central block is, externally, a restoration of the old Hotel de Ville, the remainder carried out in an analogous but somewhat more modern style. The interior has been the scene of sumptuous pictorial decoration, in which all the first artists of the day were employed—unfortunately in too scattered a manner, and on no predominant or consistent scheme. During the period one of the most characteristic architectural efforts of the French has consisted in the erection of the various smaller Hotels-de-ville or Mairies, in the city and suburban districts of the capital; as at Pantin, Lilas, Suresnes, and in various arrondissements within the city proper (Fig. 24, see Plate). Nothing shows the quality of modern French architecture better, or perhaps more favourably, than this series of district town halls; all have a distinctly municipal character and a certain family resemblance of style amid their diversity of details; all are refined specimens of pre-eminently civilized architecture. Among the greater architectural efforts of France during the last decade or two are the immense block of the new Sorbonne, by M. Nenot, a building sufficient in itself for an architectural reputation; and the great church of the Sacre Coeur, overlooking Paris from the hill of Mont- and a profusion of carved ornament, such as we know martre, an erection of such monumental massiveness nothing of in England; and though there is a rather as we never see in modern England, which was monotonous repetition of the same style and character
