Grand Trianon

The Grand Trianon (French pronunciation: [ɡʁɑ̃ tʁijanɔ̃]) is a French Baroque style château situated in the northwestern part of the Domain of Versailles in Versailles, France. It was built at the request of Louis XIV as a retreat for himself and his maîtresse-en-titre of the time, the Marquise de Montespan, and as a place where he and invited guests could take light meals (collations) away from the strict etiquette of the royal court. The Grand Trianon is set within its own park, which includes the Petit Trianon (a smaller château built in the 1760s, during the reign of Louis XV).

Between 1663 and 1665, Louis XIV purchased the hamlet of Trianon, on the outskirts of Versailles. In 1670, he commissioned the architect Louis Le Vau to design a porcelain pavilion (Trianon de Porcelaine) to be built there.

The façade was made of white and blue Delft-style porcelain (ceramic) tiles from the French manufactures of Rouen, Lisieux, Nevers and Saint-Cloud. Construction began in 1670 and was finished two years later. Since it was made of porcelain, the building suffered from deterioration. Louis XIV ordered its demolition in 1686 and replaced it with a larger building.

By 1686, the fragile porcelain tiles of the Trianon de Porcelaine had deteriorated to such a point that Louis XIV ordered the demolition of the pavilion and its replacement with one made of stronger material. Commission of the work was entrusted to the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Hardouin-Mansart's new structure was twice the size of the porcelain pavilion, and the material used was red marble from Languedoc.

Begun in June 1687, the new construction (as we see it today) was finished in January 1688. It was inaugurated by Louis XIV and his mistress, the Marquise de Maintenon, during the summer of 1688.

Hardouin-Mansart's early plans for the building were substantially altered during construction, with the original intention of keeping the core of the Trianon de Porcelaine intact vetoed in favor of an open-air peristyle with a screen of red marble columns facing onto the garden. At least three other structures were built at the center of the new building and then torn down before the peristyle was settled on, during the frantic building activity of the summer of 1687. The sloping Mansard roof of the original design, meant to harmonize with the roof of the Trianon de Porcelaine, was vetoed by the king, who felt it looked too "heavy" on the structure. The long interior gallery which forks west from the main wing was built on the spot of a favorite outdoor promenade that Louis XIV enjoyed at the old Trianon de Porcelaine.

The interior design scheme departed significantly from what Louis XIV and his architects had established at the Palace of Versailles. Louis reputedly ordered the architects to "Paint everything white. No gilt or color for the walls of Trianon." This was a departure from the variegated marbles, rich colors, and gilding which defined the interiors at Versailles. Instead of the heavy ornamentation on display in the palace, the walls of the Trianon were covered in delicately carved wood boiseries, with plaster friezes, pilasters, and capitals of noticeably more refined, delicate appearance.

The Trianon was home to Louis XIV's extended family, housing his son and heir Louis, Grand Dauphin from 1703 to 1711. The domain was also a favourite retreat of the Duchess of Burgundy, the wife of his grandson Louis de France, the parents of Louis XV.^{[citation needed]} In the later years of Louis XIV's reign, the Trianon was the residence of the King's sister-in-law Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, Dowager Duchess of Orléans and known at court as Madame. Her son, Philippe d'Orléans, future son-in-law of Louis XIV and Regent of France, lived there with his mother. Louis XIV even ordered the construction of a larger wing for the Trianon, which was begun in 1708 by Hardouin-Mansart; this wing, called Trianon-sous-Bois, housed the Orléans family, including Louis XIV's legitimised daughter Françoise-Marie de Bourbon.