Hôtel de Campan

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

The hotel belonged, around 1600, to Jean Campan, general receiver of tithes. The complete restoration of the building, including the construction of the staircase, dates from 1760, in particular the façade on rue Saint-Guilhem. The building occupies a trapezoidal surface. The portal gives access into a vestibule. A great segmental arch opens onto the staircase cage, within the building. The staircase rises from right to left, around a central hollow cage. The helical strings rest, by means of high cubic capitals, on fluted columns of Doric type, at the rate of four columns per floor. All these columns are superimposed exactly on the three floors which creates, for the observer below, a receding perspective. The hollow core is oval with ends of different size. This complicated disposition, and whose asymmetry does not appear to the eye, is due to the difficulty of joining the helical strings sometimes to a landing two metres long, sometimes to a floor landing four metres long, sometimes to the flat terminal landing. To join all these lines without sacrificing the perspective of the cage, the architect had to multiply the devices: offset of the steps of departure and arrival from one floor to another; play on the winding around the line of wear; projecting edge at each of the junctions of the string to the landing. On the upper floor, four pilasters of equal height maintain the handrail which encircles the oval cage. Of a fairly simple type, it presents four rows of spirals wound several times. These volutes in flat iron are secured by flat collars to strong straight bars.