page_title: Neoclassical architecture
section_title: Interior design
hierarchical_section_title: Neoclassical architecture / History / Interior design
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: L'appartement de l'impératrice Joséphine au Château de Malmaison à Rueil-Malmaison dans les Hauts-de-Seine en France. Installé en 1800 dans la partie nord du château, cet appartement que le couple consulaire partagea pendant plusieurs années resta à l'usage exclusif de Joséphine après 1803. L'antichambre fut très simplement meublée. - Frise peinte; tapis de sol au point de la Manufacture de la Savonnerie, console, table de toilette de Madame Bonaparte aux Tuileries, vers 1800-1803, par l'atelier Jacob Frères ou Martin Eloi Lignereux, deux fauteuils gondole en bois laqué et doré avec accoudoirs en forme de cygne, garnis de velours rouge, dessinés par Percier et Fontaine, exécution attribuée à l'atelier Jacob Frères, provenant du boudoir de Madame Bonaparte au château de Saint-Cloud. English: The apartment of empress Joséphine in the Château de Malmaison in Rueil-Malmaison, France. Installed in 1800 in the north part of the Château, this apartment which the consular couple shared during several years stayed in the Joséphine's exclusive usage after 1803. The anteroom was very simply furnished.
context_page_description: Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France.
  The development of archaeology was crucial in the emergence of Neoclassical architecture. Excavation sites like those in Pompeii and Herculaneum allowed architects to make in depth interpretations of Classical architecture and synthesize their own unique style.
  In form, Neoclassical architecture emphasizes the wall rather than chiaroscuro and maintains separate identities to each of its parts. The style is manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulae as an outgrowth of some classicising features of the Late Baroque architectural tradition. Therefore, the style defined by symmetry, simple geometry, and social demands instead of ornament. The classical architecture of today's architects must come under the heading of New Classicism.
context_section_description: Indoors, neoclassicism made a discovery of the genuine classic interior, inspired by the rediscoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum. These had begun in the late 1740s, but only achieved a wide audience in the 1760s, with the first luxurious volumes of tightly controlled distribution of Le Antichità di Ercolano Esposte (The Antiquities of Herculaneum Exposed).  The antiquities of Herculaneum showed that even the most classicising interiors of the Baroque, or the most "Roman" rooms of William Kent were based on basilica and temple exterior architecture turned outside in, hence their often bombastic appearance to modern eyes: pedimented window frames turned into gilded mirrors, fireplaces topped with temple fronts.
  The new interiors sought to recreate an authentically Roman and genuinely interior vocabulary. Techniques employed in the style included flatter, lighter motifs, sculpted in low frieze-like relief or painted in monotones en camaïeu ("like cameos"),  isolated medallions or vases or busts or bucrania or other motifs, suspended on swags of laurel or ribbon, with slender arabesques against backgrounds, perhaps, of "Pompeiian red" or pale tints, or stone colours. The style in France was initially a Parisian style, the goût grec ("Greek taste"), not a court style; when Louis XVI acceded to the throne in 1774, Marie Antoinette, his fashion-loving Queen, brought the Louis XVI style to court.
  However, there was no real attempt to employ the basic forms of Roman furniture until around the turn of the century, and furniture-makers were more likely to borrow from ancient architecture, just as silversmiths were more likely to take from ancient pottery and stone-carving than metalwork: "Designers and craftsmen ... seem to have taken an almost perverse pleasure in transferring motifs from one medium to another".
  A new phase in neoclassical design was inaugurated by Robert and James Adam, who travelled in Italy and Dalmatia in the 1750s, observing the ruins of the classical world. On their return to Britain, they published a book entitled The Works in Architecture in installments between 1773 and 1779. This book of engraved designs made the Adam style available throughout Europe. The Adam brothers aimed to simplify the Rococo and Baroque styles which had been fashionable in the preceding decades, to bring what they felt to be a lighter and more elegant feel to Georgian houses. The Works in Architecture illustrated the main buildings the Adam brothers had worked on and crucially documented the interiors, furniture and fittings, designed by the Adams.
caption: Château de Malmaison, 1800, room for the Empress Joséphine, on the cusp between Directoire and Empire style
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