The Eifel is extensively used in Paris as a building material. Not only does it compose the roofs of railway-stations and exhibition-buildings, but even churches are often to a great extent built of it. The grandest of iron structures—and, indeed, one of the world's be the great tower projected by Eiffel. This loftiest of human structures will rise from a rectangular base to the height of 3oc, metres (984 feet), and will thus far exceed in elevation every other struc ture yet erected. The rectangular base is pierced by a grand arch beside which that of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile sinks into insignificance. The immense latticed constructions which form the abutments of this arch swing toward one another with a parabolic curve like that of a light house; a second great arch, of narrower span, stands above the first, and from this point upward the tower rises as a unit in light open lattice work. There is certainly architectonic effect in this great tower, ob tained without any imitation of the forms of stone and clue to mass combined with gracefulness and symmetry.
Churches.—Among the modern churches of Paris may be mentioned St. .Augustin, a florid Renaissance structure with an iron roof; Notre Dame d'Auteuil, a basilica with a heavy vaulted roof and broad transepts of slight projection; St. Joseph's, a Romanesque church with transepts, au eastern ehevet, and five bays in both nave and choir; and the remark able Church of the Sacred IIeart at Montmartre, a Lombardie structure with a large dome at the intersection flanked by four smaller ones, and having at the eastern end a lofty campanile. Dome, spire, and turrets are roofed with cone-seales in stone, and the external materials are stone and marble in broad bands.
Theatres are far more conspicuous edifices in Paris than in the United States, or even in England. As a rule the auditorium is not large, since only the new opera-house—or Academie Nationale de Musique—the Thea tre du Chateau d' Eau, that of La Gaiete and the Chatelet seat more than two thousand persons each. The last, which has a simple somewhat neo Grecian front upon the place of the same name, has much the largest capacity, since it has seats for thirty-six hundred auditors.
The Grand (pl. 53, fig. r). —Of all the Parisian theatres, the opera-house, by Gamier, is the grandest, and is, indeed, the most mon umental structure that has been added to the city of recent years. Its superficial area is 11,337 metres, and its cubical contents are 423,600 metres. The opera-house of Vienna has a superficial area of 8567 metres and a cubical content of 222,777 metres, while that of St. Petersburg is
but little more than half the size of that of Vienna, and that of Berlin has an area of only 1891 Aietres. The width of the facade of the Paris opera-house is 230 feet, and the greatest width of the building 408 feet, while its height from foundation to summit is 266 feet.
If the Palais de Justice at Brussels must be regarded as the most mon umental of the buildings of the present age, the Paris opera-house must take rank as the richest in artistic decoration. In mere costliness of material, in splendor of marble and mosaic, painting, sculpture, and bronze, few buildings can compare with this, and its artistic wealth may be inferred from the fact that fifteen eminent painters and fifty-six eminent sculp tors, besides nineteen sculptors of ornament, were engaged upon the exterior and the interior.
The magnificence of the staircase, of the foyer and ante-foyer, of the stage and auditorium, and, in fact, of the entire interior and exterior, places this theatre at the head of its class and makes it a model for others; yet, viewed in the light of contemporary structures in Paris, the details of this famous pile, especially in the interior, are extravagantly baroque. The grand staircase is a mass of broken curved pediments with masks or elliptic shields thrust in between the divided parts. But the dazzle and glitter of the materials, the grandeur of the entire conception, and the beauty of the carving atone for the extravagance.
Notwithstanding its great dimensions and magnificence, the opera house is less striking in its exterior effect than would be imagined by those who have read only vivid descriptions of it. The varied colors have already toned down to the ordinary Paris gray. The facade is not im proved by a very heavy attic, and the great height of the structure is not apparent from the adjoining boulevard in consequence of the thrusting forward of the lower part of the building, containing the staircases, dress ing-rooms, etc. These mask the great masses of the stage and auditorium, just as the grand dome of St. Peter's is hidden by the lengthy nave.
The Thealre of Monde Carlo, at Monaco—in which Garnier's exuber ance comes out still more fully—is a work which was studied and exe cuted in six months, but which is really the ripe fruit of its architect's work at Paris. Vigorous and rich in all its details and thoroughly well arranged, some critics consider this Garnier's masterpiece.