The Pantheon

Entry two in catching up after my ~month-long silence:
In late August I was fast approaching the two-year anniversary of my arrival in France and had still never stepped foot inside a building I pass at least once or twice a week on my way to yoga or into the center of town: the Pantheon. I finally decided to make a point of it and on a lazy Sunday afternoon, made my way over. It wasn't something shocking or out of character for classic French architecture, but when does classic French architecture not impress? Particularly of note was the openness and the natural light filling the building and bouncing off all of the off-white stone walls.

A bit of background on the building: since the early 500's (no, I didn't forget to type a 1, that's about a millenium and a half ago), this site has been designated holy grounds, originally for a church commissioned by King Clovis and chosen to be the burial site for he and his wife. The church was dedicated to Saint Geneviève who was buried on site.

In 1744, King Louis made a deal: if he were to recover from his grave illness, he'd build a new church on the site. He did recover and carried through on the deal, though construction didn't finish until 1790, coinciding conveniently with the French revolution and all the anti-monarchy sentiment that led the building to be converted to a secular temple. Though made back into a church on a couple occasions, it has generally been a temple to honor French who have in some way contributed greatly to their country or brough it honor. Here are a sampling of photos from my tour.

The Pantheon as seen from outside on one of the many previous times I'd passed without stopping in.

The airy, spacious grandeur of the Pantheon's interior.

Look up! The view in ornate churches (or secular temples) from this angle never ceases to impress me.

In a place of distinction right in the middle of the floor, you can't miss Foucault's pendulum, a public reproduction of the original (placed in the Paris Observatory in 1851) commissioned by Napoleon shortly after the success of the first. [This pendulum demonstration was the first proof of the rotation of the earth.]

The crypt is home to the likes of Voltaire and other great thinkers, though in fact there are only three men (including Voltaire) who date from pre-Revolutionary times but were considered so great as to deserve a space here. Over the years, the politics of who deserves such prime eternal resting real estate have been in flux, from national military or political figures to great thinkers.