The royal Château de Chambord at Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France, is one of the most recognizable
châteaux in the world because of its very distinctive French Renaissance architecture
which blends traditional French medieval forms with classical Renaissance structures. The
building, which was never completed, was constructed by King François I.
Chambord is the largest château in the Loire Valley; it was built to serve as a hunting
lodge for François I, who maintained his royal residences at the châteaux of Blois
and Amboise. The original design of the Château de Chambord is attributed, though with some
doubt, to Domenico da Cortona; Leonardo da Vinci may also have been involved.
Chambord was altered considerably during the twenty-eight years of its construction, during
which it was overseen on-site by Pierre Nepveu. With the château nearing completion, François
showed off his enormous symbol of wealth and power by hosting his old archrival, Emperor
Charles V, at Chambord. In 1792, in the wake of the French Revolution,
some of the furnishings were sold and timber removed. For a time the building was left
abandoned, though in the 19th century some attempts were made at restoration. During
the Second World War, art works from the collections of the Louvre and the Château de Compiègne
were moved to the Château de Chambord. The château is now open to the public, receiving
700,000 visitors in 2007.
Architecture
Châteaux in the 16th-century departed from castle architecture; while they were off-shoots
of castles, with features commonly associated with them, they did not have serious defences.
Extensive gardens and water features, such as a moat, were common amongst châteaux from
this period. Chambord is no exception to this pattern. The layout is reminiscent of a typical
castle with a keep, corner towers, and defended by a moat. Built in Renaissance style, the
internal layout is an early example of the French and Italian style of grouping rooms
into self-contained suites, a departure from the medieval style of corridor rooms. The
massive château is composed of a central keep with four immense bastion towers at the
corners. The keep also forms part of the front wall of a larger compound with two more large
towers. Bases for a possible further two towers are found at the rear, but these were never
developed, and remain the same height as the wall. The château features 440 rooms, 282 fireplaces,
and 84 staircases. Four rectangular vaulted hallways on each floor form a cross-shape.
The château was never intended to provide any form of defense from enemies; consequently
the walls, towers and partial moat are purely decorative, and even at the time were an anachronism.
Some elements of the architecture – open windows, loggia, and a vast outdoor area at
the top – borrowed from the Italian Renaissance architecture – are less practical in cold
and damp northern France.
The roofscape of Chambord contrasts with the masses of its masonry and has often been compared
with the skyline of a town: it shows eleven kinds of towers and three types of chimneys,
without symmetry, framed at the corners by the massive towers. The design parallels are
north Italian and Leonardesque. Writer Henry James remarked "the towers, cupolas, the gables,
the lanterns, the chimneys, look more like the spires of a city than the salient points
of a single building."
One of the architectural highlights is the spectacular double helix open staircase that
is the centerpiece of the château. The two helices ascend the three floors without ever
meeting, illuminated from above by a sort of light house at the highest point of the
château. There are suggestions that Leonardo da Vinci may have designed the staircase,
but this has not been confirmed. Writer John Evelyn said of the staircase "it is devised
with four entries or ascents, which cross one another, so that though four persons meet,
they never come in sight, but by small loopholes, till they land. It consists of 274 steps,
and is an extraordinary work, but of far greater expense than use or beauty."
The château also features 128 meters of façade, more than 800 sculpted columns and an elaborately
decorated roof. When François I commissioned the construction of Chambord, he wanted it
to look like the skyline of Constantinople. The château is surrounded by a 52.5‑km²
wooded park and game reserve maintained with red deer, enclosed by a 31‑kilometer wall.
The king's plan to divert the Loire to surround the château came about only in a novel; Amadis
of Gaul, which François had translated. In the novel the château is referred to as the
Palace of Firm Isle. Chambord's towers are atypical of French contemporary
design in that they lack turrets and spires. In the opinion of author Tanaka, who suggests
Leonardo da Vinci influenced the château's design, they are closer in design to minarets
of 15th-century Milan. The design and architecture of the château
inspired William Henry Crossland for his design of what is known as the Founder's building
at Royal Holloway, University of London. The Founder's building features very similar towers
and layout but was built using red bricks.
History Royal ownership
Who designed the Château de Chambord is a matter of controversy. The original design
is attributed, though with several doubts, to Domenico da Cortona, whose wooden model
for the design survived long enough to be drawn by André Félibien in the 17th century.
In the drawings of the model, the main staircase of the keep is shown with two straight, parallel
flights of steps separated by a passage and is located in one of the arms of the cross.
According to Jean Guillaume, this Italian design was later replaced with the centrally
located spiral staircase, which is similar to that at Blois, and a design more compatible
with the French preference for spectacular grand staircases. However, "at the same time
the result was also a triumph of the centralized layout—itself a wholly Italian element."
In 1913 Marcel Reymond suggested that Leonardo da Vinci, a guest of François at Clos Lucé
near Amboise, was responsible for the original design, which reflects Leonardo's plans for
a château at Romorantin for the King's mother, and his interests in central planning and
double helical staircases; the discussion has not yet concluded, although most scholars
now agree that Leonardo was at least responsible for the design of the central staircase.
Regardless of who designed the château, on 6 September 1519 François Pombriant was
ordered to begin construction of the Château de Chambord. The work was interrupted by the
Italian War of 1521–1526, and work was slowed by dwindling royal funds and difficulties
in laying the structure's foundations. By 1524, the walls were barely above ground level.
Building resumed in September 1526, at which point 1,800 workers were employed building
the château. At the time of the death of King François I in 1547, the work had cost
444,070 lives. The château was built to act as a hunting
lodge for King François I; however, the king spent barely seven weeks there in total, that
time consisting of short hunting visits. As the château had been constructed with the
purpose of short stays, it was not practical to live in on a longer-term basis. The massive
rooms, open windows and high ceilings meant heating was impractical. Similarly, as the
château was not surrounded by a village or estate, there was no immediate source of food
other than game. This meant that all food had to be brought with the group, typically
numbering up to 2,000 people at a time. As a result of all the above, the château
was completely unfurnished during this period. All furniture, wall coverings, eating implements
and so forth were brought specifically for each hunting trip, a major logistical exercise.
It is for this reason that much furniture from the era was built to be disassembled
to facilitate transportation. After François died of a heart attack in 1547, the château
was not used for almost a century. For more than 80 years after the death of
King François I, French kings abandoned the château, allowing it to fall into decay.
Finally, in 1639 King Louis XIII gave it to his brother, Gaston d'Orléans, who saved
the château from ruin by carrying out much restoration work.
King Louis XIV had the great keep restored and furnished the royal apartments. The king
then added a 1,200-horse stable, enabling him to use the château as a hunting lodge
and a place to entertain a few weeks each year. Nonetheless, Louis XIV abandoned the
château in 1685. From 1725 to 1733, Stanislas Leszczyński,
the deposed King of Poland and father-in-law of King Louis XV, lived at Chambord. In 1745,
as a reward for valour, the king gave the château to Maurice de Saxe, Marshal of France
who installed his military regiment there. Maurice de Saxe died in 1750 and once again
the colossal château sat empty for many years. French Revolution and modern history
In 1792, the Revolutionary government ordered the sale of the furnishings; the wall panellings
were removed and even floors were taken up and sold for the value of their timber, and,
according to M de la Saussaye, the panelled doors were burned to keep the rooms warm during
the sales; the empty château was left abandoned until Napoleon Bonaparte gave it to his subordinate,
Louis Alexandre Berthier. The château was subsequently purchased from his widow for
the infant Duke of Bordeaux, Henri Charles Dieudonné who took the title Comte de Chambord.
A brief attempt at restoration and occupation was made by his grandfather King Charles X
but in 1830 both were exiled. In Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea, published in
the 1830s, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow remarked on the dilapidation that had set in: "all
is mournful and deserted. The grass has overgrown the pavement of the courtyard, and the rude
sculpture upon the walls is broken and defaced". During the Franco-Prussian War the château
was used as a field hospital. The final attempt to make use of the colossus
came from the Comte de Chambord but after the Comte died in 1883, the château was left
to his sister's heirs, the titular Dukes of Parma, then resident in Austria. First left
to Robert, Duke of Parma, who died in 1907 and after him, Elias, Prince of Parma. Any
attempts at restoration ended with the onset of World War I in 1914. the Château de Chambord
was confiscated as enemy property in 1915, but the family of the Duke of Parma sued to
recover it, and that suit was not settled until 1932; restoration work was not begun
until a few years after World War II ended in 1945. The Château and surrounding areas,
some 5,440 hectares, have belonged to the French state since 1930.
In 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the art collections of the Louvre
and Compiègne museums were stored at the Château de Chambord. An American B-24 Liberator
bomber crashed onto the château lawn on 22 June 1944. The image of the château has been
widely used to sell commodities from chocolate to alcohol and from porcelain to alarm clocks;
combined with the various written accounts of visitors, this made Chambord one of the
best known examples of France's architectural history. The Château de Chambord was the
inspiration for the Beast's castle in the 1991 animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast.
Today, Chambord is a major tourist attraction, and in 2007 around 700,000 people visited
the château. Influence
The Founder's Building at Royal Holloway, University of London, designed by William
Henry Crossland, was inspired by the Château de Chambord. The main building of Fettes College
in Edinburgh, designed by David Bryce in 1870, also contains decorative quotations from the
Château de Chambord. References
Notes
Footnotes
Bibliography
Further reading
External links Château de Chambord
Château de Chambord - The official website of France
Photos of Chambord 360° Panoramas of Le Château de Chambord'
by the Media Center for Art History, Columbia University