In 1861, Charles Garnier, a young unknown architect won a competition to design a new opera house for Paris.  Replete with romantic energy and filled with hundreds of sculpted images of the human body, the building was enormous in scale, its size made possible by new techniques of iron construction. 

 

Following the model of a Greek temple, Garnier arranged the public spaces as a path of initiation, preparing the spectator to become an actor entering a world where the mundane falls away and a more vivid life is revealed.