Architecture
The exterior of the building is notable for its use of layered stonework of contrasting colours: white Calissane limestone is alternated with layers of green, Golfalina stone in a style reminiscent of Florence. Inside the upper church, no expense was spared to provide a worthy setting for the veneration of the Virgin. Of particular note is the use of a variety of coloured marbles and polychrome pictorial mosaics. Access to the building is gained from a plaza 100 feet (35m) wide leading to a drawbridge. From this one one may either directly enter the crypt or climb a stairway to the entrance porch of the upper church. The building can be seen as a succession of spaces: the porch and bell tower, a nave flanked by side vaults, the transept, dome, choir and apse.
Read more about this topic: Notre-Dame De La Garde
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Defaced ruins of architecture and statuary, like the wrinkles of decrepitude of a once beautiful woman, only make one regret that one did not see them when they were enchanting.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)