Luxembourg Palace

About this place

The Luxembourg Palace is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was originally built to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the regent Marie de' Medici, mother of King Louis XIII. After the Revolution it was refashioned by Jean-François Chalgrin into a legislative building and subsequently greatly enlarged and remodeled by Alphonse de Gisors. The palace has been the seat of the upper houses of the various French national legislatures since the establishment of the Sénat conservateur during the Consulate; as such, it has been home to the Senate of the Fifth Republic since its establishment in 1958. Notice how the building presents itself to the surrounding streets or landscape, then compare its public and more intimate spaces. This helps explain how architecture expressed the position, resources and ambitions of the people who commissioned it.