Palais Brongniart

For the commodities exchange, seeBourse de commerce (Paris).

Palais Brongniart
Location within Paris
General information
Architectural style	Neoclassical
Location	2nd arrondissement,Paris, France
Coordinates	48°52′09″N2°20′29″E
Construction started	1808
Completed	1825 (opening)
Inaugurated	4 November 1826
Owner	City of Paris
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart Éloi Labarre
Website
https://www.palaisbrongniart.com/

ThePalais Brongniart(English:Brongniart Palace) is a building inParisthat was built at the direction ofNapoleonin the early 19th century to house theParis stock exchange(French:Bourse de Paris).It is located at the Place de la Bourse, in the2nd arrondissementin central Paris. It was named after its initial architect,Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart,who died in 1813 prior to its completion. The Palais Brongniart is nowadays used as an events centre, since the trading floor relocated in 1987, followed in 2004 by the last financial institution that was still housed there.

Early history

Historically, stock trading took place at several spots in Paris, including rue Quincampoix, rue Vivienne (near thePalais Royal), and the back of theOpéra Garnier(the Paris opera house).

Architecture

In the early 19th century, the Paris Bourse's activities found a stable location at thePalais Brongniart,orPalais de la Bourse,built to the designs of architectAlexandre-Théodore Brongniartfrom 1808 to 1813 and completed byÉloi Labarrefrom 1813 to 1826.

Brongniart had spontaneously submitted his project, which was a rectangularneoclassicalRoman temple with a giantCorinthiancolonnadeenclosing avaultedandarcadedcentral chamber. His designs were greatly admired byNapoleonand won Brongniart a major public commission at the end of his career. Initially praised, the building was later attacked for academic dullness. The authorities had required Brongniart to modify his designs, and after Brongniart's death in 1813, Labarre altered them even further, greatly weakening Brongniart's original intentions. From 1901 to 1905, Jean-Baptiste-Frederic Cavel designed the addition of two lateral wings, resulting in a cruciform plan with innumerable columns. According to the architectural historian Andrew Ayers, these alterations "did nothing to improve the reputation of this uninspiring monument."

Operations

Main hall inside the Palais Brongniart

From the second half of the 19th century, official stock markets in Paris were operated by theCompagnie des agents de change,directed by the elected members of astockbrokers' syndical council. The number of dealers in each of the different trading areas of the Bourse was limited. There were around 60agents de change(the official stockbrokers). Anagent de changehad to be a French citizen, be nominated by a former agent or his estate, and be approved by the Minister of Finance, and he was appointed by decree of the President of the Republic. Officially, theagents de changecould not trade for their own account nor even be a counterpart to someone who wanted to buy or sell securities with their aid; they were strictly brokers, that is, intermediaries. In the financial literature, the Paris Bourse is hence referred to as order-driven market, as opposed to quote-driven markets or dealer markets, where price-setting is handled by a dealer or market-maker. In Paris, onlyagents de changecould receive acommission,at a rate fixed by law, for acting as an intermediary. However, parallel arrangements were usual in order to favor some clients' quote.The Commodities Exchange was housed in the same building until 1889, when it moved to the presentBourse de commerce. Moreover, until about the middle of the 20th century, a parallel market known as"La Coulisse"was in operation.

Until the late 1980s, the market operated as anopen outcryexchange, with theagents de changemeeting on the exchange floor of the Palais Brongniart. In 1986, the Paris Bourse started to implement an electronic trading system. This was known generically asCATS(Computer Assisted Trading System), but the Paris version was called CAC (Cotation Assistée en Continu). By 1989, quotations were fully automated. The Palais Brongniart hosted the French financial derivatives exchangesMATIFandMONEP,until they were fully automated in 1998. In the late 1990s, the Paris Bourse launched theEuronextinitiative, an alliance of several European stock exchanges.

See also

• List of works by James PradierExternal sculpture
• Tribunal de commerce de Paris,hosted in the Palais Brongniart from 1826 to 1865

Sources

History

• Lehmann, P.-J. 1991La Bourse de Paris,Paris: Dunod.
• Lehmann, P.-J. 1997Histoire de la Bourse de Paris,Paris: PUF.
• Muniesa, F. 2005 "Contenir le marché: la transition de la criée à la cotation électronique à la Bourse de Paris",Sociologie du Travail47(4): 485–501.
• Walker, D. A. 2001 "A factual account of the functioning of the nineteenth-century Paris Bourse",European Journal of the History of Economic Thought8(2): 186–207. mdr..

Structure

• Ayers, Andrew (2004).The Architecture of Paris.Stuttgart; London: Edition Axel Menges.ISBN978-3-930698-96-7.
• Bias, B., Foucault, T. and Hillion, P. 1997Microstructure des marchés financiers: institutions, modèles et tests empiriques,Paris: PUF.
• Hamon, J. 1995Marché d'actions: architecture et microstructure,Paris: Economica.
• Hamon, J. and Jacquillat, B. 1992Le marché français des actions: études empiriques 1977-1991,Paris: PUF.