Palais ideal du facteur Cheval. Maison. Curiosity, surreal building, naïve art architecture, constructed by Ferdinand Cheval, a postman.
Ferdinand Cheval began the building in April 1879 when he was 43. For thirty-three years, Cheval picked up stones during his daily mail round and carried them home to build the Palais idéal. He spent the first twenty years building the outer walls. At first, he carried the stones in his pockets, then switched to a basket, then used a wheelbarrow. He often worked at night, by the light of an oil lamp. The palace materials mainly consist of stones, pebbles, porous tufa and fossils of many different shapes and sizes. When you first come up on the palace, the first face you see is the southern facade spanning nearly 30 yards long and 14 yards high. The decoration resembles aspects of both the Brighton Pavilion and Gaudí’s Sagrada Família. Cheval did not travel and he had even given himself the title of peasant, so even though the qualities resemble those pieces of art, he had never seen them before. Giant stones each with doll-like faces standing close to 35 ft high serve not only as decoration but as a support system for the Barbary Tower, with an elegant spiral staircase lined with swans made of cement leading up to it. The tall stones were named Vercingétorix, Archimedes and Caesar. Cheval hand-carved the names into each individual figure. The north face exhibits a long path dotted with large openings to provide lots of light leading into the heart of the palace itself. This facade is very forest-like with walls coated in moss and massive seaweed. The ceiling, swirling patterns of pebbles and shells that outline the chandeliers. Upper walls are lined with horizontal bands with animals carved into them in an Egyptian-like style. Other animals on the north face facade include two ostriches and an ostrich chick, a 4 foot tall camel, flamingos, octopi, lions, dragons, and a polar bear. The east facade took the longest to build before, a shocking 20 years. The Palais is a mix of different styles with inspirations from Christianity to Hinduism.
Size: 5760px × 3840px
Location: Hauterives, Drome, France
Photo credit: © DV TRAVEL / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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