Northeast Corner

Ferdinand Cheval, often called Facteur Cheval ("Postman Cheval") spent 33 years building Le Palais Idéal in Hauterives, in southeastern France. It is regarded as an extraordinary example of naïve architecture. Cheval began building in 1879 when he was 43. He reported:

"I was walking very fast when my foot caught on something that sent me stumbling a few metres away, I wanted to know the cause. [Previously, in] a dream, I had built a palace, a castle or caves, I cannot express it well... I told no one about it for fear of being ridiculed and I felt ridiculous myself.

"Then fifteen years later, when I had almost forgotten my dream, when I wasn't thinking of it at all, my foot reminded me of it. My foot tripped on a stone that almost made me fall. I wanted to know what it was... It was a stone of such a strange shape that I put it in my pocket to admire it at my leisure.

"The next day, I went back to the same place. I found more stones, even more beautiful, I gathered them together on the spot and was overcome with delight... It's a sandstone shaped by water and hardened by the power of time. It becomes as hard as pebbles. It represents a sculpture so strange that it is impossible for man to imitate, it represents any kind of animal, any kind of caricature.

"I said to myself: since Nature is willing to do the sculpture, I will do the masonry and the architecture."

For the next 33 years, Cheval picked up stones during his daily mail rounds and carried them home to build the Palais idéal. At first, he carried the stones in his pockets, then switched to a basket. Eventually, he used a wheelbarrow. He often worked at night, by the light of an oil lamp.

The Palais is a mix of different styles, with inspirations from Christianity to Hinduism.

South Side

When visitors arrive at the palace, the first thing they see is the southern facade, approximately 26 metres (85 feet) long and up to 10 m (33 ft) high. The decoration resembles... both the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England and Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Família, [though] Cheval did not travel [and] had never seen them.

East Side

Three giant stones, each with doll-like faces, standing about 10.5 meters high, serve not only as decoration but as a support system for the Barbary Tower, with a line of cement swans leading up to a spiral staircase. The three giant stones were named after Vercingétorix, Archimedes and Julius Caesar, the names of each hand-carved by Cheval into each individual figure.

East Side, Three Giants

The north facade exhibits a long path dotted with large openings to provide plentiful light leading into the heart of the palace itself. This facade is strikingly forest-like: walls are coated in moss and massive seaweed. The ceiling's swirling patterns of pebbles and shells outline the chandeliers. Upper walls are lined with horizontal bands that have animals carved into them, Egyptian style. Other animals on the north facade include two ostriches (presumably mother and father) and an ostrich chick, a 1.2 m (3.9 ft) tall camel, flamingos, octopuses, lions, dragons, and a polar bear.

The east [possibly a typo for west] facade took the longest to build, 20 years. It includes the Temple of Nature, an Egyptian style temple-like structure supported by large, thick sandstone columns. It includes two waterfalls called the Source of Life and the Source of Wisdom.

West Side

The palace is sprinkled with short quotes and poems, hand-carved by Cheval himself. Some examples being "If you look for gold you will find it in elbow grease.", "The Pantheon of an obscure hero." "The work of one man", "Out of a dream I have brought forth the Queen of the World", "This is of art, and of energy", "The ecstasy of a beautiful dream and the prize of effort", "Dream of a peasant", "Temple of Life", and "Palace of the Imagination".

Perhaps the most iconic phrase reads "1879-1912, 10,000 days, 93,000 hours, 33 years of struggle. Let those who think they can do better try."

SOURCE: Norman Mackenzie's Dreams and Dreaming (1965; p.128), plus Wikipedia (late 2023).

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