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Inarchitecture, anenfilade is a series of rooms formally aligned with each other. This was a common feature in grand European architecture from theBaroque period onward, although there are earlier examples, such as theVatican stanze. The doors entering each room are aligned with the doors of the connecting rooms along a single axis, providing a vista through successive rooms. The enfilade may be used as a processional route and is a common arrangement in museums and art galleries, as it facilitates the movement of large numbers of people through a building.
In a Baroque palace, access down an enfilade suite ofstate rooms typically was restricted by the rank or degree of intimacy of the visitor. The first rooms were more public, and usually at the end was the bedroom, sometimes with an intimatecabinet orboudoir beyond. Baroqueprotocol dictated that visitors of lower rank than their host would be escorted by servants down the enfilade to the farthest room their status allowed. If the visitor was of equal or higher rank, the host would advance down the enfilade to meet their guest, before taking the visitor back.
At parting, the same ritual would be observed, although the host might pay their guest a compliment by taking them back farther than their rank strictly dictated. If a person of much higher rank visited, these rituals extended beyond the enfilade to the entrance hall, the gates of the palace, or beyond (in modernstate visits, to theairport).
Memoirs and letters of the period often note the exact details of where meetings and partings occurred, even to whether they were in the centre of the room, or at the door.[citation needed]
Royal palaces often had separate enfiladed state apartments for the king and queen, as at thePalace of Versailles, with thegrand appartement du roi and thegrand appartement de la reine (not to mention thepetit appartement du roi), or atHampton Court Palace. Such suites also were used for entertaining.
Noblemen's houses, especially if a visit from the monarch was hoped for, often feature enfiladed suites, as atChatsworth House,Blenheim Palace, theChâteau de Louveciennes, orBoughton House. The bedrooms in such suites were often only slept in on royal visits, although as with many grand bedrooms before the nineteenth century, they might be used for other purposes. Other enfilades culminated in a room used as athrone room. ThePalace of Westminster, shown below, comes into this category, as the monarch sits on a throne in the chamber of theHouse of Lords during theState Opening of Parliament.
SirCharles Barry'sPalace of Westminster, more commonly known as theHouses of Parliament, has an enfilade of three royal apartments that continues through the two legislative Chambers of the Lords and Commons. The enfilade of state rooms presents a view from the Robing Room and Royal Gallery – B and C on the plan – through to the Prince's Chamber. From thethrone in the adjacent Lords' Chamber (D) there is an uninterrupted view through three lobbies – Lords', Central, andMembers' Lobby – to the Speaker's Chair in the Commons Chamber at the other end of the Palace. (Lords' Lobby and Members' Lobby are the round and square spaces to the left and right of E on the Plan)
Barry also used a number of enfilades in his extension to theNational Gallery, London,[1] built as anart gallery. These have been extended and added to in the recent Sainsbury Wing (despite the wing being at an angle to the earlier building), so that now the view down the longest enfilade traverses fifteen rooms.[2]
