Presidential Residences in France

Take an exclusive tour of three presidential residences in France—their histories, art, gardens, and architecture—discussed and photographed for the first time.
 

This volume offers a visit to the presidential residences of France: the Élysée Palace and its neighboring Hôtel de Marigny, the Lantern Pavilion hidden away in the park of Versailles, and the Brégançon Fort. These are the places where one can discover the excellence of French artisans, its art conservators and restaurateurs, and its famed gardeners. These sites of political theater and residences of the French president showcase France’s exceptional artistic heri­tage and present the great treasures of “French taste,” in perpetual reinvention from the eighteenth century through today, to diplomatic visitors from all over the world.
 
The text presents a new way of understanding these buildings and their history, one which puts in perspective their evolution in decor, public or secret, and which decrypts their symbolic power thanks to the author’s unprecedented access to the buildings and to archival documents.

Adrien Goetz is an art historian and an acclaimed novelist, and a member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He currently teaches at the University of Paris-Sorbonne. Ambroise Tézenas has published several books and contributes regularly to magazines such as The New York Times Magazine, Architectural Digest, and W.