Pointe de Lance

Palais Royal’s fragile beauty is under threat. Large areas of the decorative mosaic floor tiles are worn, now patched over with tarmac. Several of the iconic golden spikes that surround the gardens are missing.

Each one of these golden spikes in ceramic and gold glaze is a full-scale model, handmade by Kühn Keramik in Berlin. Today, in an act of ‘geurrilla restoration’ one of these ceramic spikes replaces one of the missing.

A hidden jewel in the heart of Paris, Palais Royal over the centuries has been home to dreamers, romantics and the rich and famous - Richelieu, Molière, Anne d’Autriche, the young Louis XIV, Duke of Orléans, Colette and Jean Cocteau to name but a few. The existing railings with their distinctive golden spikes date from 1780, when the original Palace and gardens built in 1628 were encircled by a pedestrian arcade of galleries, cafés and ‘salons’.