Cour Carrée

Give one window and its surrounding decoration your attention before taking in the whole square. The repeated openings bring order to the Cour Carrée, while relief figures and projecting pavilions give your eyes places to pause. Looking closely makes the palace feel less like one continuous wall. In 1546, François I, the French king, commissioned the architect Pierre Lescot to rebuild the western side in a Renaissance style. The sculptor Jean Goujon contributed decoration inspired by antiquity. Together, architecture and sculpture made the royal residence a place where learning, craftsmanship and authority could be displayed. The courtyard grew through later building campaigns to four times the area of its medieval predecessor. What seems like a single enclosing square therefore holds several moments in the palace’s development. Try comparing the divisions and decoration on different façades rather than assigning them all one date. The archaeological remains below preserve another part of that history. Here in the open courtyard, you can appreciate how much more space the later palace claimed, and how carefully its surfaces address the person looking at them.