who was the palace of versailles built for
Palace of Versailles First built by Louis XIII in 1624 as a hunting lodge of brick and stone, and designed by the architect Jacques Lemercier, the edifice was enlarged into a royal palace by Louis XIV.[2] The first phase of the expansion (c. 1661–1678) was designed and supervised by the architect Louis Le Vau. It culminated in the addition of three new wings of stone (the enveloppe), which encompassed Louis XIII's original building on the north, south, and west (the garden side). André-Charles Boulle, the most famous French cabinetmaker and the preeminent artist in the field of marquetry,[3] was engaged in 1669 to create ouvrages de peinture, and Boulle was employed for many years at Versailles, where the mirrored walls, floors of wood mosaic, inlaid paneling and marquetry in the Cabinet du Dauphin (1682–1686) was regarded as his most remarkable work.[4] The rooms were dismantled in the late 18th century and their unfashionable art broken up.[5] More recently, a partial inventory of the Grand Dauphin's decorations at the Palace of Versailles has come to light at the National Archives in Paris.[6]
Buckingham Palace Originally known as Buckingham House, the building at the core of today's palace was a large townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703 on a site that had been in private ownership for at least 150 years. It was acquired by King George III in 1761[4] as a private residence for Queen Charlotte and became known as The Queen's House. During the 19th century it was enlarged, principally by architects John Nash and Edward Blore, who constructed three wings around a central courtyard. Buckingham Palace became the London residence of the British monarch on the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837.