Great Colonnade at Palmyra The western colonnade was the first section to be built. Inscriptions found on some columns confirm that works started before 158 CE. The straight avenue ran in northwest-southeast direction and stretched for , the longest of the three sectors. The main avenue's width was while the side streets were in width. The colonnade's western terminus, the West Gate, was built in the late second-century CE. The avenue also connected in a right angle to the Transverse Colonnade which stretched to the Damascus Gate in the south. The eastern sector of the Great Colonnade started at the Monumental Arch and stretched
Perrault's Colonnade the competition held by Louis XIV for a design for the eastern façade of the Louvre Palace, beating out even Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who had traveled from Italy expressly for the purpose. This work consumed Perrault from 1665 to 1680, and established his reputation: the severely designed colonnade overlooking the Place du Louvre — for which buildings including the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon were demolished to provide the necessary urban space — became widely celebrated. In 1964, the French Minister of Culture, André Malraux, ordered the digging out of the dry moat in front of Perrault’s Colonnade. A characteristic feature of