Back view of the Château de Chambord, Chambord, Loire Valley, France
Some background information:
The Château de Chambord is a large palace, which is located in the Loire Valley in the village of Chambord. The palace is situated in the department of Loir-et-Cher between the cities of Tours to the west and Orléans to the east, just 15 km (9 miles) to the northeast of the town of Blois. It is one of the most recognisable châteaux in the world because of its very distinctive French Renaissance architecture which blends traditional French medieval forms with classical Renaissance structures. The building, which was never completed, was constructed by King Francis I of France.
Chambord is the largest château in the Loire Valley. It was built to serve as a hunting lodge for Francis I, who maintained his royal residences at the palaces of Blois and Amboise. The original design of the Château de Chambord is attributed, though with some doubt, to Domenico da Cortona, but there is some evidence that Leonardo da Vinci was also involved. Archeological findings have established that the lack of symmetry of some facades derives from an original design, abandoned shortly after the construction began, and which ground plan was organised around the central staircase following a central gyratory symmetry. Such a rotative design has no equivalent in architecture at this period of history, and appears reminiscent of Leonardo Da Vinci's works on the hydraulic turbine and the helicopter.
On 6th September 1519 Francis Pombriant was ordered to begin construction of the Château de Chambord, but work was interrupted by the Italian War that lasted from 1521 to 1526. Building resumed in 1526, at which point 1,800 men were employed to continue the construction works. In 1540, the main building was completed. The château was built to act as a hunting lodge for King Francis I. However, the king spent barely seven weeks there in total, that time consisting of short hunting visits. But the palace was not only a huge hunting château for Francis I, but also – more importantly – an enormous symbol of wealth and power and hence, a property to show off with. To this effect the king hosted his old archrival, Emperor Charles V, at Chambord in 1539, although the monumental mansion wasn’t even fully completed at that time.
As the palace had been constructed with the purpose of only short stays, it was not practical to live in on a longer-term basis. The massive rooms, open windows and high ceilings meant that heating was almost impossible. As a result, the château was completely unfurnished during this period. All furniture, wall coverings, eating implements and so forth were brought specifically for each hunting trip, which was a major logistical exercise. It is for this reason that much furniture from the era was built to be disassembled to facilitate transportation. After Francis had died of a heart attack in 1547, the Château de Chambord was not used for almost a century.
For more than 80 years after the death of King Francis I, French kings abandoned the château, allowing it to fall into decay. Finally, in 1639 King Louis XIII gave it to his brother, Gaston d'Orléans, who saved the château from ruin by carrying out much restoration work. King Louis XIV had the great keep restored and furnished the royal apartments. The king then added a 1,200-horse stable, enabling him to use the château as a hunting lodge and a place to entertain a few weeks each year. Nonetheless, Louis XIV abandoned the château in 1685. From 1725 to 1733, Stanislas Leszczyński (Stanislas I), the deposed King of Poland and father-in-law of King Louis XV, lived at Chambord. In 1745, as a reward for valour, the king gave the château to Maurice de Saxe, Marshal of France, who installed his military regiment there. Maurice de Saxe died in 1750 and once again the colossal château sat empty for many years.
In 1792, the revolutionary government ordered the sale of the furnishings. The wall panellings were removed and even floors were taken up and sold for the value of their timber. One more time the empty château was left abandoned until Napoleon Bonaparte gave it to his subordinate, Louis Alexandre Berthier. The château was subsequently purchased from his widow for the infant Duke of Bordeaux, Henri Charles Dieudonné, who took the title Comte de Chambord. A brief attempt at restoration and occupation was made by his grandfather King Charles X but in 1830 both were exiled. After the Comte de Chambord had died in 1883, the château was left to his sister's heirs, the titular Dukes of Parma. And since 1930, the Château and its surrounding areas, some 5,440 hectares (13,400 acres resp. 21.0 sqare miles) as vast as inner Paris, belong to the French state.
Some more words about the architecture:
Built in Renaissance style, the internal layout of the Château de Chambord is an early example of the French and Italian style of grouping rooms into self-contained suites, a departure from the medieval style of corridor rooms. The massive château is composed of a central keep with four immense bastion towers at the corners. The keep also forms part of the front wall of a larger compound with two more large towers. Bases for a possible further two towers are found at the rear, but these were never developed, and remain the same height as the wall. The château features 440 rooms, 282 fireplaces, 84 staircases and more than 200 chimneys. Four rectangular vaulted hallways on each floor form a cross-shape.
The château was never intended to provide any form of defence from enemies; consequently the walls, towers and partial moat are decorative, and even at the time were an anachronism. The roofscape of Chambord contrasts with the masses of its masonry and has often been compared with the skyline of a town. It shows eleven kinds of towers and three types of chimneys, without symmetry, framed at the corners by the massive towers. The design parallels are north Italian and Leonardesque. One of the architectural highlights is the spectacular open double-spiral staircase that is the centrepiece of the château. The two spirals ascend the three floors without ever meeting, illuminated from above by a sort of light house at the highest point of the château.
The château also features 128 metres of façade, more than 800 sculpted columns and an elaborately decorated roof. When Francis I commissioned the construction of Chambord, he wanted it to look like the skyline of Constantinople. The palace is surrounded by a 52.5-square-kilometre (13,000-acre) wooded park and game reserve maintained with red deer, enclosed by a 31-kilometre (19-mile) wall.
The design and architecture of the château inspired William Henry Crossland for his design of what is known as the Founder's building at Royal Holloway, University of London. But Château de Chambord’s architecture also influenced the architecture of other well-known buildings like Fettes College in Edinburgh, Scotland, Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, England, and Schwerin Palace in Schwerin, Germany. The Château de Chambord is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981 and belongs to the much larger UNESCO Word Heritage Site "The Loire Valley between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes" with its many breathtaking châteaux since 2000.
