Description of the attraction
Bronyar Palace used to be called Birzhevym: the Paris Stock Exchange was located here. Its modern name is in memory of the architect Alexander Theodore Bronyar, who designed the building on the orders of Napoleon.
The first French stock exchange was opened by a decree of the royal council back in 1724, it was located in the Hôtel de Nevers mansion, which has not survived to this day, on the left bank of the Seine. In 1793, amid a severe commodity crisis, the French revolutionaries closed the stock exchange, a hotbed of economic liberties. It was reopened only under Napoleon in 1801. At the same time, the emperor, having approved the Exchange Code, issued a decree on the construction of a special building for the exchange.
The site for construction was selected on the site of the former convent of the Daughters of St. Thomas Aquinas - it existed here since 1626, but was destroyed by the same revolutionaries. Bronyar designed a building that looks like an ancient Greek temple. It is made in the neoclassical Empire style, has the shape of a cross in plan and is installed on a high podium. The palace is surrounded by a majestic continuous colonnade.
Bronyar did not have time to complete his creation: he died in 1813. The project was taken over by the architect Elua Labarre, who completed the construction in 1825. Historical painter Alexander Denis Abel de Pujol painted the plafond of the stock exchange. Near the corners of the building, sculptures of Justice (by Dure), Commerce (Dumont), Industry (Pradier) and Agriculture (Surre) were erected. In 1903, the building was further expanded - two side wings were added to it.
For a long time, the Paris Stock Exchange was the second largest in Europe after the London Stock Exchange. In 2000, it merged with the stock exchanges of Amsterdam and Brussels, today this grandiose European company is called Euronext. Full computerization of all operations made it possible to free up the premises of the palace. It hosts conferences, exhibitions, fashion shows. There is also a stock exchange museum open to tourists. You can get here on any day except Saturday and Sunday.
