Neo-Grec Architecture

Neo-Grec was a neoclassical revival style that emerged in the mid to late nineteenth century, gaining particular prominence in France under Napoleon III's Second Empire between 1852 and 1870 before spreading to Victorian England and the United States. It synthesized Graeco-Roman, Pompeian, Adam and Egyptian Revival influences into a richly eclectic, polychrome blend, and the architectural historian Neil Levine has described it as a reaction against rigid classicism, replacing the rhetorical form of classical architectural discourse with a more literal, descriptive syntax intended to be readable. The style drew heavily on renewed archaeological excavation at Pompeii, resumed in earnest in 1848, and at Herculaneum, which revived interest in ancient decorative modes. Henri Labrouste's Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve in Paris, built between 1843 and 1850, is generally regarded as the first major public building in the style.