History of the Palace of Versailles round towers. The vignette also shows a garden on the western side of the château with a fountain on the central axis and rectangular planted "parterres" to either side. Louis XIV had played and hunted at the site as a boy. With a few modifications, this structure would become the core of the new palace. Louis XIII's successor, Louis XIV, had a great interest in Versailles. He settled on the royal hunting lodge at Versailles, and over the following decades had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world. Beginning in 1661, the architect Louis Le Vau,
Palace of Versailles more classical pavilion designed by Mansart, with a terrace and walls faced with different colored slabs of marble. After the Revolution, the Trianon served as a residence for both Napoleon I and later for King Louis-Philippe when they visited Versailles. It is decorated today largely as it was under Napoleon and Louis-Philippe. The Petit Trianon was created between 1763 and 1768 by Ange-Jacques Gabriel for Louis XV. The square shaped building, with each facade different, was a prototype of Neoclassicism in France. The most ornate facade, with Corinthian columns, faced the French landscape garden. Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon