Beaux-Arts

Beaux-Arts (French for "fine arts") style of architecture originated in Paris, France in the mid 1800s. Beaux-Arts combines ancient Greek, Rome, and Renaissance styles. It is easily recognized by its formal design, grand stature, symmetry, and elaborate ornamentation. The United States boast a large population of planned neighborhoods that employ the Beaux Arts style with fancy houses, wide streets and large parks. The Beaux Arts is the most common form of architecture for public buildings such as museums, banks, and libraries, as well as the occassional train station and courthouse.

Features

 * Massive and grandiose
 * Constructed with stone
 * Balustrades
 * Balconies
 * Columns
 * Cornices
 * Pilasters
 * Triangular pediments
 * Lavish decorations: swags, medallions, flowers, and shields
 * Grand stairway
 * Large arches
 * Symmetrical façade

History
Most architects who built buildings in the style of Beaux Arts attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris to get trained in classical styles of architecture.

Also known as Beaux Arts Classicism, Academic Classicism, or Classical Revival, Beaux Arts is a late and eclectic form of Neoclassicism. It combines classical architecture from ancient Greece and Rome with Renaissance ideas. Beaux Arts is characterized by order, symmetry, formal design, grandiosity, and elaborate ornamentation. In the United States, the Beaux Arts style led to planned neighborhoods with large, showy houses, wide boulevards, and vast parks. Due to the size and grandiosity of the buildings, the Beaux Arts style is most commonly used for public buildings like museums, railway stations, libraries, banks, courthouses, and government buildings.

In the mid 1920's, the Beaux Arts style lost its popularity and around 1945 were labeled ostentatious. The Beaux Arts style would later gain some popularity but it never returned to its previous glory. Two of the best American examples of the Beaux-Arts tradition stand within a few blocks of each other: Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library.

Architects
Notable architects associated with this style include:
 * Otto Eugene Adams
 * William A. Boring
 * William W. Bosworth
 * Arthur Brown Jr
 * Daniel Burnham
 * Carrère and Hastings
 * James Edwin Ruthven Carpenter, Jr.
 * George S. Cooper
 * Ernest Cormier
 * Paul Philippe Cret
 * Jules Dormal
 * Edward Bennett Dougherty
 * Ernest Flagg
 * C. P. H. Gilbert
 * Cass Gilbert
 * Thomas Hastings
 * Raymond Hood
 * Henry Hornbostel
 * Richard Morris Hunt
 * Charles Klauder
 * Electus D. Litchfield
 * Austin W. Lord
 * John M. Lyle
 * William Sutherland Maxwell
 * William Rutherford Mead
 * Julia Morgan
 * Charles Follen McKim
 * Henry Orth
 * Willis Polk
 * John Russell Pope
 * Henry Hobson Richardson
 * Jule Henri de Sibour
 * Francis Palmer Smith
 * Edward Lippincott Tilton
 * Horace Trumbauer
 * Enoch Hill Turnock
 * Stanford White