What is "porthos"

Porthos, Baron du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds is a fictional character in the novels The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, père. He and the other two musketeers, Athos and Aramis, are friends of the novel's protagonist, d'Artagnan.

In The Three Musketeers his family name is du Vallon. In Twenty Years After, having made a financially advantageous marriage, he is first known as du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds, before he earns the title of Baron.

Porthos, honest and slightly gullible, is the extrovert of the group, enjoying wine, women and song. Though he is often seen as the comic relief, he is also extremely dedicated and loyal toward his friends and fellow Musketeers. His eating abilities even impress King Louis XIV during a banquet at Versailles. As the story advances, he looks more and more of a giant, and his death is that of a titan.

At the time of The Three Musketeers (ca. 1627) he apparently has few lands or other resources to draw from. He was finally able to extract sufficient funds from an elderly lawyer's somewhat younger wife (whom he was romancing and later married) to equip himself for the Siege of La Rochelle.

The fictional Porthos is very loosely based on the historical musketeer Isaac de Porthau.

Porthos is with its height of the second tallest building in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. The building is used as an apartment building and has a total of 108 units. Porthos has 32 floors.

Porthos has been build between the spring of 2004 and 2006. ING Real Estate Development was the developer of the apartment building. That company was given the task to renovate and expand a shopping center called Woensel. The municipality of Eindhoven asked ING to add residential use to the shopping center. The company added three residential buildings to Woensel, collectively called "De Drie Musketiers" (Dutch for The Three Musketeers), of which Porthos is the tallest. Porthos has been build on top of the shopping center. Also an underground parking garage was built underneath the apartment building. The firm Engelman designed Porthos with help of the engineering firm Zonneveld. The building was built by Hurks at a cost of €24.5 million.

Porthos consists of prefab concrete parts and because of that the building was topped out within one hundred days. When the prefab elements were placed on their locations, they already had been equipped with glass and pipes. The exterior of Porthos is made of ceramic bricks and aluminium. The chambranles consist of aluminium as well. A rooftop terrace, that is only accessible to the inhabitants of the penthouses, is situated on top of the apartment building. All apartment units are owner-occupied and according to Gerard van de Ven, manager real estate at Hurks, seventeen units had been sold previous to the start of the construction. Almost all units had been sold at the time the building was finished, according to Van de Ven.

On November 14, 2007, it was announced that Porthos won the 2007 Betonprijs in the category "execution". The judge said the construction of Porthos didn't cause much disturbance because of the short duration of the construction and because of the relatively small space the construction required. According to the judge, this was the result of the extensive prefabrication.

Porthos is a fictional musketeer

Porthos, may also refer to:

• Porthos (building), an apartment building in the Dutch city Eindhoven
• Porthos (Star Trek), a fictional dog in Star Trek
• Seawise Giant, the longest ship ever build