VISIONARY ARCHITECTURE WEEK: Le Palais Ideal of Postman Cheval
The extravagantly baroque “Palais Idéal” outside of Valence, Hauterives, France was built single-handedly by the 19th century postman Ferdinand Cheval, who collected its stones during his daily rounds on horseback, and incorporated them into the grand edifice during his afternoons and evenings. It is, as one guidebook notes, a “composite style, combining aspects of a Khmer temple, a mosque, a Hindu sanctuary, a feudal castle, a Swiss chalet and the manger in Bethlehem.”
In Cheval’s own words: “I was the first to agree with those who called me insane; I was not a builder, I had never handle a mason’s trowel; I was not a sculptor. The chisel was unknown to me; not to mention architecture, it was a field in which I remained totally ignorant”. It took him twenty years just to build the outer walls. An inscription on the building reads: “1879-1912: 10000 days, 9300 hours, 33 years of toil.”
Having never visited the palace ourselves, we’d be grateful for any insights our readers could provide.



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