Hall of Mirrors

The Hall of Mirrors (French: Grande Galerie, Galerie des Glaces, Galerie de Louis XIV) is a grand Baroque style gallery and one of the most emblematic rooms in the royal Palace of Versailles near Paris, France. The grandiose ensemble of the Hall and its adjoining salons was intended to illustrate the power of the absolutist monarch Louis XIV. Located on the first floor (piano nobile) of the palace’s central body, it faces west towards the Palace Gardens.The Hall of Mirrors has been the scene of events of great historic significance, including the Proclamation of the German Empire and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

In 1623 King Louis XIII ordered the construction of a modest two-story hunting lodge at Versailles, which he soon enlarged to a château from 1631 to 1634. His son Louis XIV declared the site his future permanent residence in 1661 and ordered the transformation into an extensive residence in several stages and on a grandiose scale. The palace was to provide ideal settings for rest and retreat but it also had to attain a new quality of representation as the future seat of Europe’s greatest absolutist royal court and government of supreme authority, residence of choice for the aristocratic society and arena for elaborate state festivals and ceremonies, Europe’s centre of culture, art and entertainment.

During the early expansion phase Louis Le Vau added the Forecourt (1662) and the “Le Vau Envelope” (1668 to 1670), encased the old château and added two new wings in the north and south. The new wings towered over the original western building by the garden. The space in between was a terrace supported by arcades. The buildings of the “Le Vau Envelope” included the king’s apartments in the north and the queen’s apartments in the south.