SECOND EMPIRE STYLE MOULDING PROFILES & GALLERY
SECOND EMPIRE ARCHITECTURE
The Second Empire style evolved, as Emperor Napoleon III (1852 – 1870), orchestrated the rebuilding of Paris with wide avenues and expansive monumental buildings. This distinct style is fashioned with rich embellishments, overlapped with Italianate and Victorian elements: overhanging eaves, baroque brackets, fancy door and window hoods, the use of pavilions and rectangular or octagonal towers. The predominant feature of the Second Empire style is the Mansard roof, named after the seventeenth-century architect François Mansart who oversaw the enlargement of the Louvre.
Significant examples of the Second Empire style in the United States are the Renwick Gallery and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and townhouses built between 1860 and 1880, located in Washington DC. A majority of Second Empire-designed structures can be found in the Northeast and Midwest regions of the United States.
SECONG EMPIRE MOULDINGS
The Second Empire is an eclectic style that incorporated several earlier French design trends while including modern structural iron elements. The use of specifically French, bulbous, overlapping, undercut moldings differentiate it from work that uses mass-produced, industrialized profiles of the same era. Simultaneous with the mid-Victorian period, segmental rather than round arches distinguish it from the Italianate style.
HISTORY OF SECOND EMPIRE ARCHITECTURE
As Paris underwent one of the most dramatic transformations in its history, a new architectural style emerged to embody the grandeur and ambition of the age. Second Empire architecture takes its name from the reign of Napoleon III, Emperor of France from 1852 to 1870, whose government oversaw the sweeping modernization of the French capital. Under Napoleon III and Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, medieval streets gave way to broad boulevards and monumental public works, while an extraordinary period of construction reshaped the appearance of Paris. Among the most influential projects was the expansion of the Louvre under architects Louis Visconti and Hector Lefuel, whose work became closely associated with the architectural character of the Second Empire. The international exhibitions held in Paris in 1855 and 1867 further introduced contemporary French architecture to audiences from abroad, helping its influence spread beyond France.
By the 1850s and 1860s, the fashionable architecture of Napoleon III’s France had found an enthusiastic audience in the United States. American architects and patrons looked increasingly toward Paris for inspiration, and Second Empire architecture became particularly prominent in the years following the Civil War. Its association with contemporary France gave the style an air of modernity and cosmopolitan sophistication at a time when American cities and institutions were rapidly expanding. The federal government became one of its most important patrons under Supervising Architect Alfred B. Mullett, who employed the style for imposing courthouses, post offices, and government offices throughout the country. By the 1870s, Second Empire architecture had become a commanding presence in American civic and residential design, linking the architectural ambitions of a growing nation with those of Napoleon III’s transformed Paris.
