The Ideal Palace

When fantasy meet art and architecture ! When the crazy dream of a man enters the reality ! The “Ideal Palace of Facteur Cheval” !

Located in Hauterives (France), this place is an enigma.

The Facteur Cheval is born in 1836. He was not a builder but learnt it by himself, just with the motivation to realize his dream. He worked about this project between 1879 and 1912. That is not the work of an architect but the work of a life.

For him, this palace is : “every styles of every lands and of every times, mixed and combined”.

Previously called “the Tempel of Nature”, this palace has 4 facades :

– “Source of life” (Est), where can be found a cave and the “Egyptian tomb” where he wanted to be buried (but that is in an other one he built in the village that he rests : “the tomb of silence and rest without end”).

– Nord with colonnes. There is also written : “1879-1912 : 10 000 days, 93 000 hours, 33 years of trial” and “More dogged than me get down working”.

– West : Hindu tempel, swiss chalet, square house of Algiers, Middle-ages castle, and a mosque … as the meeting of Orient and Occident.

– Sud : “Musée Antidéluvien” where the Facteur Cheval collected stones.

This palace, inspired of raw art was supported by artists like Picasso or André Breton. It is now classified “historical monument” since 1969.

We can find in this crazy project, the heritage of Ludwig II of Bavarian (in Neuschwanstein)… and a common approach of the architecture as Gaudi… but it remains unique.

See more on :

http://www.facteurcheval.com/index.html