The Palace of Versailles, Château de Versailles, or simply Versailles was built in 1623 by Louis XIII as a hunting lodge of brick and stone, the structure was expanded into a royal palace by Louis XIV. The first phase of the expansion was in 1661–1678 and was designed and supervised by the architect Louis Le Vau. At first the town was quite small but it was also a wealthy town. As we take a look back we will be looking at the architecture, and the many different faces that surrounded the palace of Versailles and made the history what it is today.
The history of the architecture is that of a fascinating story. Louis VIII only wanted to have this building as a hunting lodge for him to get away. While at that time it was nowhere near the size that it is today, because of political power and wealth, we see the expansion of this magnificent structure grow over the course of many, many years. During the first phase, there was an addition of three new wings of stone, the envelope, which surrounded Louis XIII's original building on the north, south, and west, or the garden
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When Louis XV took over he did do a transformation of the palace but it was not on the scale of his descending fathers. The completion of the Salon d'Hercule, started during the last years of Louis XIV's reign but was never finished because his father had passed. Some of the kings most significant achievements during his time was the opera and the Petit Trianon. He was also very proud of the work he did on the gardens, towards the end of his reign he began the work on the entrance of the palace with classical façades. He would still be completing this work up even during the time of his son reign, that would end up not be completed until the 20th