PORTE À PORTE

Hôtel de la Lauzière, Arles

Here's another stop-dead-in-your-tracks early 17th century monumental door. The elaborate façade is conspicuous proof of the social status of the grande famille that once lived within the walls of the hôtel particulier to which it gives entrance. 


At 42 rue de la République in Arles, the door is framed by stone torsades sculpted in the Mannerist style, a movement in art and architecture between the Renaissance and Baroque periods in which unusual effects were obtained by the use of scale, lighting, perspective and color.

Vocabulary
une grande famille: an important family as opposed to a big family, which would be translated as une famille nombreuse


hôtel particulier: an imposing private residential structure; a townhouse

une colonne torse: a twisted column
torsader: to twist

porte à porte: door-to-door

Read more: Stone and Illusion

Text & photos ©2011 P.B. Lecron