Victor Laloux, who was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1878 is remembered as a great exponent of the Beaux-Arts style. He designed the city halls in Tours and Roubaix and the train station in Tours. He was entrusted with the surface works of the hotel and Orsay station in Paris in 1898. Buildings designed by Laloux had an opulent eclecticism merging all the styles of French classicism, from Louis XIV to Louis XV: they were a fusion of stone, decorative materials and ornamental cast iron.