Marie Antoinette | Dog Eaters

The guillotine…

Posted on 07.18.15 under Japan Olympic Stadium, Kenzo Tange, Marie Antoinette, Versailles

“We have decided to go back to the start on the Tokyo Olympics-Paralympics stadium plan, and start over from zero,” said the prime minister, Shinzō Abe, after a meeting at his office with Yoshirō Mori, chairman of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee.

It was going to be the most expensive stadium ever at $2 billion USD. Opposition from leading Japanese architects, the general populace was strong and the ruling party is down in the polls. With this eleventh-hour, desperation move, perhaps the prime minister gets to keep his head.

This was designed by Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi-British architect. In 2004 she became the first woman recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and received the Stirling Prize in 2010 and 2011.

How is it so different than the current Yoyogi National stadium between Harajuku and Shibuya that it would have replaced?

This stadium was designed by Kenzō Tange, winner of the 1987 Pritzker Prize for architecture. He was one of the most significant architects of the 20th century, combining traditional Japanese styles with modernism, and designed major buildings on five continents.

A lesson from history, learned?

I believe the last nail in the coffins of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI was the impression of tone-deaf over-spending for personal purchases. First there was the diamond necklace, which she was accused of trying to defraud the Crown Jewelers. Rumors that she plastered the walls with gold and diamonds while war debt piled up — the French, by way of Marie Antoinette’s prodding, gave assistance to the Thirteen Colonies that became America. Ironic in a way because she also changed the fashion at court from the heavy makeup and hooped dresses to the simpler English style.

I went to Versailles a couple of weeks ago. It’s over-romanticized, ornate beyond anything you’ve ever seen before, huge — the parties must have been epic! Just about the most fabulous (and I never use that word) palace
in the world. All I kept thinking — and saying, was: “It must be great to be a queen. Until they chop off your head.”

The first gate…

The second gate…

A place like this is under continuous renovation. I wonder what the monthly maintenance fees are?

We were almost the first in line, so I was able to get this shot without any people in it. Nope, didn’t have to photoshop anyone out!

The best adjectives for Versailles are “opulent” and “voluptuous.”

But wait there’s more. This model shows the expanse of Versailles but doesn’t include the Hameau, which was commissioned by Marie Antoinette in 1783. This was not just one or two buildings, but something like a village landscaped in the style of a British garden. Apparently the French populace was appalled by the cost. There were streams and miniature man-o-war and galleys on the lakes.

We’ll get it later.

There must be thousands of statues.

Tons of paintings in frames on the walls, on the ceilings, in the corners of the ceilings. The rooms are themed for the Greek gods.

Much more of this, it just keeps coming.

And coming…

Mirrors were a sign of ostentatious wealth as they were very expensive to make. This room was situated to reflect a garden.

Paintings glorifying French victory in war. Surprisingly, a very large room was filled with paintings and statues.

The great Charlemagne.

Perhaps you already knew that the French love breasts.

After lunch, we finally made it outside to walk and cruise the gardens. Again, the scope of which is impossible to describe.

I took about 500 photos at Versailles, so just multiply by 20 or 30 to get a feeling for the full impact of this place. Again, a magnificent place that has to be experienced to be believed.

One of the smaller fountains near the palace.

Love these hedges.

One of the contemporary art pieces.

Breasts and a snake. Must be one of the first stripper with snake acts.

Ah, now we’re past the Petit Trianon (there’s also a Grand Trianon built by Louis XIV for his maîtresse-en-titre (chief mistess) as a place to relax away from the strictures of the court.

The Petite Trianon seemed to me like a pretty plain structure but apparently it’s a celebrated example of the transition from the Rococo style of the earlier part of the 18th century, to the more sober and refined, Neoclassical style of the 1760s and onward.

So on to the Hameau which is like the world of the Hobbit’s Middle Earth.