“Architecture is merely the embellishment with which we hide our basic needs.”—Jean le Rond d’Alembert, French mathematician, physicist, editor, and philosopher.When Henri IV built the place des Vosges in the early 1600’s, the design of the pavilions and the architecture details were very specific. The ground floor, planned for shops, was set back to create a covered walkway of four arcades per lot. Each building would have two floors above the arcades capped with steep slate roofs encompassing another two floors pierced with mansard windows—two round and two square, all framed by the roofline. All facades were to be the same—brick with cut-stone trim. The plans even specified the balconies and their décor.
However, at the end of the day, the facades would be too expensive, plus workers didn’t have the skills necessary to build them as designed. Thus, many owners constructed theirs of plaster on wood framing and then painted them to resemble brick in colors ranging from dusty pink to dark red. Additionally, most window sets near the rooflines ended up a little different than designed—not always having the exact same windows, shapes, or placement. Even the balconies took on different designs but only the wrought-iron ones with the straight, plain support poles are authentic. 
It’s very interesting to walk around the largest, most perfect square in Paris (460 x 460 feet) and study the facades of the 36 pavilions. For example, you see stones cut in little squiggles, like vermicelli, the same kind used to decorate the Seine side of the Louvre. The sharply cut ones in this photo are new; the worn ones—the squiggles on the left column—are the originals. Many of the homes or pavilions have very interesting histories of their inhabitants and subsequent dramas over the years but that would take a book to relate those details! 
To read more about the place des Vosges, see the blog dated 1/28/07. This last picture is of a gallery next to an old carriage door leading into the pavilion's courtyard, a very common sight in Paris.
