In The Midst Of The Marvelous

At the turn of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte sought more than military conquest—he sought a visual language equal to his imperial ambitions. Enter Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, architects whose mastery of antiquity and modern invention birthed Empire Style: an aesthetic of symmetry and splendor, where eagles and sphinxes, bees and laurel wreaths, proclaimed the grandeur of a new Rome. Together, they transformed palaces (like that of Fontainebleau and Malmaison), interiors, and even furniture into instruments of power, their designs as theatrical as they were enduring. 

“The only way to lead people is to show them a future: a leader is a dealer in hope,” Napoleon Bonaparte sagely observed.

Born in Corsica in 1769 to a family of minor nobles, Napoleon rose amid the convulsions of the French Revolution, transforming himself from an ambitious artillery officer into Emperor of the French and, briefly, King of Italy. His ascent was fueled by military brilliance, an indomitable will, and a conviction that, as he declared, “the word impossible is not French.” Yet he understood that power required more than armies and treaties; it demanded spectacle.

To give form to his political vision, Napoleon turned to art and architecture. He embraced an aesthetic both regal and rational, one that could rival the grandeur of Rome while signaling the dawn of a new age: Empire Style. Among the architects and designers he drew into his orbit, none were more influential than Charles Percier (1764–1838) and his lifelong collaborator Pierre François Léonard Fontaine (1762–1853).

Percier, the son of a modest upholsterer, had won the Prix de Rome at nineteen, a distinction that allowed him to study the ruins and treasures of antiquity. In Rome, he met Fontaine, and together they absorbed the lessons of classical proportion and Renaissance refinement. Their partnership began in earnest in 1792, when Percier was commissioned to design stage sets for the Paris Opéra. With a flair for theatricality, they could conjure antiquity as living drama—an ability that caught Napoleon’s eye.

By 1801, Napoleon had named them architectes du gouvernement, entrusting them with projects that would embody his reign. They transformed the Louvre and the Tuileries, reshaped Paris into a stage for empire, and undertook grand renovations at Fontainebleau and Malmaison.

At Fontainebleau, the château that had long served as a seat of French monarchs, Percier and Fontaine orchestrated a renovation that embodied Napoleon’s desire to link himself to the nation’s storied past while projecting a new imperial future. They restored and refitted the palace with a rigor that balanced historic preservation with theatrical reinvention, reviving Renaissance galleries while introducing interiors imbued with Empire grandeur. From richly ornamented salons to ceremonial chambers emblazoned with eagles, bees, and laurel motifs, Fontainebleau became a stage for Napoleonic pageantry, its architecture proclaiming continuity with kings while signaling the arrival of an emperor.

Malmaison, by contrast, revealed the more intimate dimension of Empire Style. Purchased by Josephine in 1799, the château was transformed under Percier and Fontaine’s direction into a refined domestic sphere where imperial grandeur mingled with personal taste. Rooms were adorned with motifs drawn from antiquity—sphinxes, swans, and classical columns—yet softened by Josephine’s love of horticulture and exotic ornament. The result was a residence that balanced authority with intimacy, a space where the Emperor could embody republican simplicity even as he rehearsed imperial splendor.

As progenitors of Empire Style, Percier and Fontaine established a vision of power, grandeur, and grace, one that distinguished Napoleon at the vanguard of a new era in modern history. “Imagination governs the world,” Napoleon observed, a sensibility Percier and Fontaine shared. As architects of Empire Style, they embraced the symbols of ancient Rome—the last great imperial power in the West—and infused them with the pomp and pageantry of European aristocracy.

Working in the service of an emperor who imagined France as the center of a unified Europe, Percier and Fontaine brought the majesty of Napoleon’s vision to life in all manner of scale. Equally skilled as interior designers and decorators, as well as architects, they imbued a sublime splendor to tea tables, boiserie, beds, candelabra, chandeliers, ceilings, and the like. Their love of ornament was balanced by the rigorous spirit of symmetry, emblazoning Napoleonic emblems like the eagle, the bee, stars, and the initials “I” (for Imperator) and “N” (for Napoleon) alongside imperial motifs such as lions, oxen heads, horses, chimera, sphinxes, rosettes, palm branches, and other figures of victory.

Percier and Fontaine’s influence extended far beyond their shores. When American envoy James Monroe attended Napoleon’s coronation in 1804, he returned home inspired, later commissioning the Blue Room of the White House in Empire style. Even across the Atlantic, the new republic borrowed from the imagery of empire.

Though Percier drew prolifically, many of his visions were never built, their grandeur surviving only in thousands of drawings. Their tenure as Napoleon’s official architects was brief, undone by the tides of history, but their impact was enduring. Empire Style lingered in palaces and parlors alike, shaping the visual language of power for generations.

Napoleon himself, reflecting on the transience of glory, once asked: “What are we? What is the future? What is the past? What magic fluid envelops us and hides from us the things it is most important for us to know? We are born, we live, and we die in the midst of the marvelous.”

So too with Percier and Fontaine: their works remaining as fragments of a marvelous ambition, the dream of an empire drawn with stone, wood, and light.

A study of the ways in which architecture is used to convey the principles of imperial power. I'm interested in looking at Napoleon's rise following the French Revolution and key projects he gave to Percier including the Louvre, the Tuileries Palace, and the Château de Malmaison — and the ways in which architecture and interiors were done together to convey the spirit of empire.

PERCIER: Redefine your visual identity in flattering round spectacles named after Charles Percier, the official architect of Napoleon who constructed new forms and symbols that replaced the gilded tones of the feudal system with a new awareness of time, memory, and artistry. -- Open, P3 lens shape with double-rivet hinge, offering a generous fit for medium-sized faces.

They are a GO, with the caveat that we focus more on the individual's as artists and deal less with the broad strokes of history. More about their practice and works, less about the Empire. Basically, we're trying to stay out of the politics of the era where possible. If that's all good then full speed ahead!