The place royale and urban design in the ancient régime

by Richard Louis Cleary

The Place Royale and Urban Design in the Ancien Regime is the first to examine a unique urban phenomenon that is closely associated with French monarchy in the age of absolutism. A distinct type of city square, the places royales were planned in honor of Louis XIV and his heir, Louis XV. Featuring a freestanding statue of the monarch at its center, it was framed by buildings of uniform, monumental design such as are found in some of the most outstanding examples to have survived, including the Place Vendome and the Place Stanislas. Instruments of royal propaganda, these urban spaces tested the fealty of provincial and municipal governments, which were responsible for realizing them within the heart of densely occupied cities. In this study, Richard Cleary examines the places royales in terms of the political mechanisms and design processes through which they were conceived, their intended meanings for contemporaries, and their relationship to the urban fabrics of which they are a part.