Make the stair of a palace a processional space: one broad flight rising to a landing, then turning back in two flights either side to arrive at the principal floor beneath a single great vault.
The marche
Arrange the principal spaces as a sequence along the main axis (steps, portico, vestibule, great hall, and beyond) so that the visitor’s progress through the building is itself the composition.
The marche (the walk) is the experience of the plan in time: the rhythm of compression and release, of low vestibules opening into high halls, and of views along axes to a goal. In Garnier’s Opéra the sequence runs from the steps and loggia through the vestibules to the grand stair, the foyers and the auditorium, each space larger and richer than the last. The axis in the figure is marked in red, with the stations of the marche numbered along it.
Related rules
Compose any building on squared paper: first draw its principal axes, then a grid of equal squares; place the walls on the axes and the columns at their intersections; only then open the walls and combine the parts.
grid module = the interaxis of the columns; walls on grid lines; supports on grid points
Build every type (temple, museum, college, hospital, barracks) from the same small set of elements, combined about axes parallel, perpendicular or concentric to one another.
Begin a design by choosing its parti (the one governing idea of the plan) and commit to it in a first sketch; everything afterwards develops that choice.
Draw the solid masonry of a plan in black, filling every pier and thickened wall, so that the rooms read as shaped voids carved from a mass.
Break the slope of the roof on all four sides: a steep lower slope, nearly a wall, which holds a storey of rooms lit by dormers, and a shallow upper slope, often invisible from the street.
lower slope ≈ 60–75° · upper slope ≈ 15–30°
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The marche”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/beaux-arts-marche. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.