Porte Dorée

The Palais de la Porte Dorée is a massive, rectangular building characterized by its clean, geometric lines and a sprawling, twelve-hundred-square-meter bas-relief carved into its main limestone façade. Constructed by architect Albert Laprade for the International Colonial Exhibition of nineteen thirty-one, the palace was intended to serve as a permanent monument celebrating the French colonial empire. Sculptor Alfred Janniot designed the exterior relief, which depicts ships, exotic wildlife, and indigenous populations engaged in labor, an artistic display meant to illustrate the economic contributions of France's overseas territories at the time.