Landmarks Event- Europe 1, #19 Paris Opera, France - till Nov 27th!

This is the first monument I signed up for in this event. That was obvious to me. If I wanted to highlight a monument in the list that has to be this one.

The year is 1858.
Napoleon III (nephew of this one) is ruling France as Emperor, like his uncle.
On January 14th 1858, while his was going to the Opera in a narrow street of Paris, Napoleon III is targeted by a bomb attack (142 people injured). The next day he decides that Paris needs a new Opera, in a more open space, with a specific entrance for the Emperor...

An architecture competition is then opened, with 161 contestants, in which Viollet-le-Duc (who is making a wonderful job at restoring Notre-Dame de Paris) is the favorite.
At 35, without any major realization behind him, Charles Garnier is declared winner in 1861.

The construction took until 1874, and - as every building of this importance? - exploded its budget. One can note that, during the Commune de Paris (see more events around these dates in the Sacré-Coeur description), the construction was stopped and the building was used to store food and hay for horses.

Built in eclectic ( and mostly neo-Baroque) style this building has an incredible feel when you are in it. From the outside, statues of musicians, muses and representation of major arts shows clearly you will enter a temple of arts (with Apollo overseeing it all).
The highlight of the visit for me were the Grand Staircase and the Grand Foyer. You can feel men in top hats smoking cigars and ladies with their magnificent dresses making sure they take all the time necessary to climb the stairs. If you look outside the Grand Foyer towards the Avenue de l'Opéra, you know you'll find there horses pulling carriages and the town streets lit with gas lamps.

Let's enter the building through the Emperor's west wing, into the Rotonde des Abonnés (subscribers rotunda).
Let's pause here.
With the key you see while looking up (remove non-alphabetic signs and spaces) you can decipher this message below and go to the Grand Staircase
Encrypted message: HSUZFGNOGVOEIPRWDTPTLRL

(format: https://steamgifts.com/giveaway/xXXXX/)

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Note: Collect the passcodes from all the landmarks from this week to gain access to a train for 1st week of November!

Schedule for complete event and access to weekly trains can be found here

Nov 22 edits: typos
Nov 26: hints
In which room are you? LOOK at what is written on the ceiling of this room. This is your key. The cipher is well known, holds the name of a French man (as hinted below) and uses a series of interwoven Caesar ciphers based on the letters of a keyword

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