Luxembourg Palace
The Luxembourg Palace, or Palais du Luxembourg, was designed for power long before it became parliamentary routine. Construction began in 1615 and ran until 1645, creating a royal residence for Marie de’ Medici, regent to Louis XIII. Her goal was explicitly architectural: she wanted something comparable to Florence’s Palazzo Pitti, and she sent the architect Métézeau to Florence to study it. After the Revolution, the palace shifted from monarchy to legislation. Between 1799 and 1805, Jean-François Chalgrin refashioned it into a legislative building, and later it was enlarged from 1835 to 1856 under Alphonse de Gisors. That political role never disappeared: the palace has been the seat of the upper houses of French legislatures since the Sénat conservateur began during the Consulate, and it has housed the Senate of the Fifth Republic since 1958. …
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