Place Vendôme
Place Vendôme is square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, Its regular architecture by Jules Hardoin-Mansart and pedimented screens canted across the corners give the rectangular place Vendôme the aspect of an octagon. The original Vendôme Column at the centre of the square was erected by Napoleon I to commemorate the Battle of Austerlitz ; it was torn down on 16 May 1871, by decree of the Paris Commune, but subsequently re-erected and remains a prominent feature on the square today.
The original column was started in 1806 and completed in 1810, It was modelled after Trajan’s Column in Roma, its veneer of 425 spiralling bas-relief bronze plates was made out of cannon taken from the combined armies of Europe.
These plates were designed by the sculptor Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret and executed by a team of sculptors including Jean-Joseph Foucou, Louis-Simon Boizot, François Joseph Bosio, Lorenzo Bartolini, Claude Ramey, François Rude, Corbet, Clodion, Julie Charpentier and Henri-Joseph Ruxthiel.
A statue of Napoleon, bare-headed, crowned with laurels and holding a sword in his right hand and a globe surmounted with a statue of Victory as in Napoleon as Mars the peacemaker in his left hand, was placed atop the column.
These plates were designed by the sculptor Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret and executed by a team of sculptors including Jean-Joseph Foucou, Louis-Simon Boizot, François Joseph Bosio, Lorenzo Bartolini, Claude Ramey, François Rude, Corbet, Clodion, Julie Charpentier and Henri-Joseph Ruxthiel.
A statue of Napoleon, bare-headed, crowned with laurels and holding a sword in his right hand and a globe surmounted with a statue of Victory as in Napoleon as Mars the peacemaker in his left hand, was placed atop the column.
The place Vendôme has been renowned for its fashionable and deluxe hotels such as the Ritz, there is 28 Hôtels Particuliers on Place Vendôme, After his death in 1990, American artist Keith Haring was cremated and his ashes were sprinkled out on a hillside near Kutztown, except for one handful, that Yoko Ono brought to the place Vendôme because she believed the spirit of Haring had told her to.
