Test your Design IQ
What is the name of one of Paris’s most famous monuments?
This monument stands in the center of the Place Charles de Gaulle, also known as the Place de l’Étoile (Star Square), in Paris. It is at the western end of the Champs-Élysées and honors those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars, and today also includes the tomb of the unknown soldier.
The monument is the linchpin of the historic axis, a sequence of monuments and grand thoroughfares on a route that goes from the courtyard of the Louvre Palace to the outskirts of Paris. The monument was designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806, and its iconographic program pitted heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail and set the tone for public monuments, with triumphant nationalistic messages, until World War I.
The monument stands over 51 meters (165 feet) in height and is 45 meters wide. It was commissioned in 1806 after the victory at Austerlitz by Emperor Napoleon I at the peak of his fortunes. Laying the foundations alone took two years, and in 1810 when Napoleon entered Paris from the west with his bride Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria, he had a wooden mock-up of the completed monument constructed. The architect Jean Chalgrin died in 1811, and the work was taken over by Huyon. During the Restoration, construction was halted and would not be completed until the reign of King Louis-Philippe, in 1833 to 1836.
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Last week’s question: Who is the German architect and structural engineer who founded the Institute for Lightweight Structures (IL) at the University of Stuttgart, Germany?
Answer: Frei Otto
Winner: Marion Jose of Navotas
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