The Palais Garnier by Charles Garnier is widely considered to be one of, if not the, most seminal works of the Beaux-Arts style. Garnier’s palace is a monument to the distinctly French style which emerged during the nineteenth century. The building encompasses many of the most recognizable aspects of the style such as symmetry, classical motifs, heavy arcuation, liberal application of scupltural features, festoons and cartouches galore, as well as a prominent display of oeil-de-boofs. The style has deep ties to its neoclassical precursors, as we see a clear embrace of antiquity, and a deliberate attempt at asserting France, by way of a state identity, as a nation-state at the cultural center of humanity by likening it to Rome and Greece. In particular, I feel that, in the same way that German Neoclassical style tended towards Greece in its austerity (think Schinkel), the Beaux-Arts style tends towards Roman influence in its more explicit attempts at expressing its identity as a cultural capitol. Whereas the Germans respected the austerity of Greece’s monolithic form, the Beaux-Arts style leans into Rome’s identity as the pinnacle of human culture; as such, we see France expanding upon the Roman orders in the same way that the Romans did to the Greeks at almost Baroque level. This fusion of Roman influence, and French sensibilities results in exactly what you would expect: a sort of Neo-Classical-Baroque style that is distinctly French.