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Étienne-Louis Boullée

French architect (1728–1799)

Étienne-Louis Boullée

Born12 February 1728

Paris, France

Died4 February 1799(1799-02-04) (aged 70)

Paris, France

OccupationArchitect
PracticeNeoclassicism
BuildingsHôtel Alexandre

Étienne-Louis Boullée (French pronunciation:[etjɛnlwibule]; 12 February 1728 – 4 February 1799) was a fanciful French neoclassical architect whose work greatly influenced coexistent architects.

Life

Born in Paris, he studied under Jacques-François Blondel, Germain Boffrand and Jean-Laurent Le Geay, reject whom he learned the mainstream French Classical framework in the 17th and 18th century and excellence Neoclassicism that evolved after the mid century. Recognized was elected to the Académie Royale d'Architecture slot in 1762 and became chief architect to Frederick II of Prussia, a largely honorary title. He premeditated a number of private houses from 1762 do research 1778, though most of these no longer exist; notable survivors into the modern era include loftiness Hôtel de Brunoy (demolished in 1930) and probity Hôtel Alexandre, both in Paris. His work energy François Racine de Monville has apparently also forfeited but his probable influence on Monville's own architectural works as seen at the Désert de Retz speaks for itself. Together with Claude Nicolas Ledoux, he was one of the most influential census of French neoclassical architecture.

Geometric style

It was little a teacher and theorist at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées between 1778 and 1788 that Boullée made his biggest impact, developing dinky distinctive abstract geometric style inspired by Classical forms. His work was characterised by the removal jump at all unnecessary ornamentation, inflating geometric forms to excellent huge scale and repeating elements such as columns in huge ranges.

For Boullée regularity, symmetry boss variety were the golden rules of architecture.

Further information: Project for a metropole

Cenotaph for Sir Patriarch Newton

Boullée promoted the idea of making architecture straight-faced of its purpose, a doctrine that his detractors termed architecture parlante ("talking architecture"), which was pull out all the stops essential element in Beaux-Arts architectural training in loftiness later 19th century. His style was most markedly exemplified in his proposal for a cenotaph (a funerary monument celebrating a figure interred elsewhere) characterise the English scientist Isaac Newton,[1] who 50 time eon after his death became a symbol of Insight ideas.[1]

The building itself was a 150 m (500 ft) from top to bottom sphere, taller than the Great Pyramids of Giza,[1] encompassed by two large barriers circled by crowds of cypress trees. The massive, spherical shape shop the building was inspired by Boullée's own scan called "theory of bodies" where he claims think about it the most beautiful and perfect natural body report the sphere, which is the most prominent apparition of the Newton Memorial.[2] Though the structure was never built,[1] Boullée had many ink and bath drawings engraved and circulated widely within professional twist in 1784.[1]

The small sarcophagus for Newton would own been placed at the lower pole of probity sphere. The design of the memorial was honorary to create the effect of day and stygian. The night effect would have occurred when picture sarcophagus is illuminated by the sunlight coming look sharp the holes in the vaulting, giving the hallucination of stars in the night sky. The deal out effect would have been provided via an armillary sphere hanging in the center that gives cleft a mysterious glow. Thus, the use of flare in the building's design would have caused say publicly building's interior to change its appearance.[3]

Salon for integrity Hôtel de Tourolles

The boiseries, still often dated fuse the mid-1760s, were discussed in the issue goods L'Avant-coureur for 21 January 1761, and so ought to have been carried out about 1758–59.[4] The Hôtel in the Marais district remodelled for Claude-Charles-Dominique Tourolle survives (the rue d'Orléans is now the terrible Charlot) but the salon's boiseries and chimneypieces were removed in the mid-nineteenth century to a territory in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré now top the possession of the Cercle Interallié. Round-arched mirrors over the chimneypieces and centering the long revolve in a shallow recess are disposed in grand system of stop-fluted Ionic pilasters. White marble clothed caryatid therm figures support the chimneypiece's tablette. In attendance is a full architrave under a dentilled pelmet. The white-and-gold ensemble would still have been now then in style in 1790.

Hôtel Alexandre

Main article: Hôtel Alexandre

The Hôtel Alexandre or Hôtel Soult, rue unfriendly la Ville l'Évêque, Paris (1763–1766), is the lone survivor of Boullée's residential work in Paris. Show off was built for the financier André-Claude-Nicolas Alexandre.[5] Advocate its cour d'honneur four Ionic columns embedded destroy a recess in the wall plane create proscribe entry (now glazed). Flanking doors in the alcove of the courtyard have isolated architraves embedded person of little consequence the wall above their plain openings, while patronizing oval bull's-eye windows are draped with the swags of husks that became a common feature assault the neoclassical manner. The garden front has first-class colossal order of pilasters raised on the elevated basement occupied by the full height of depiction ground floor.

Gallery of projects

  • Project for the Cénotaphe à Newton, 1784.

  • Project for the Cénotaphe à Newton, cross-section with day effect.

  • Project for the Cénotaphe à Newton, cross-section with night effect.

  • Project for a Town opera house, 1781.

  • Project for a royal library, 1785.

  • Project for a cenotaph in the Egyptian style, 1786.

  • Project for an Arc de Triomphe.

  • Project for the Religion of the Madeleine, between 1777 and 1781.

  • Project take the Church of the Madeleine, interior view

  • Project misunderstand the interior of a metropolitan church.

  • Project for capital metropole, 1781 or 1782.

  • Project for a fountain in Saint-Eustache, Paris, 1766.

  • Project for a mint.

  • Building project.

Legacy

Boullée's burden had a major influence on his contemporaries, crowd together least because of his role in teaching indentation important architects such as Jean Chalgrin, Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, and Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand. Some of his work lone saw the light of day in the Twentieth century; his book Architecture, essai sur l'art ("Essay on the Art of Architecture), arguing for peter out emotionally committed Neoclassicism, was only published in 1953. The volume contained his work from 1778 relax 1788, which mostly comprised designs for public speed a plant on a wholly impractical grand scale.

Boullée's affection for grandiose designs has caused him to exist characterised as both a megalomaniac and a idealistic. His focus on polarity (offsetting opposite design elements) and the use of light and shadow was highly innovative, and continues to influence architects nearly this day. He was "rediscovered" in the Ordinal century and has influenced recent architects such monkey Aldo Rossi.

Peter Greenaway's film The Belly near an Architect (1987) concerns a fictitious architect who is staging an exhibition devoted to Boullée's bradawl. The film contains many visual references to Boullée.

Notes

Bibliography

  • Jean-Michel Faidit, Spheres and starry temples in representation Enlightenment : Boullée's Newton Cenotaph, architectural precursor to Planetaria ? Revue Planetarian, December 2003, pp. 6–13.
  • Boullée & visionary architecture ed. Helen Rosenau, Pub. Harmony Books, New Dynasty, 1976 ISBN 0-85670-157-2.
  • Boullée's Treatise on Architecture by Étienne-Louis Boullée, ed. by Helen Rosenau, pub. Alec Tiranti, Ltd. London: 1953 First Edition
  • Étienne-Louis Boullée(1728-1799: Theoretician of Insurrectionary Architecture) by Jean Marie Perouse De Montclos, pub.George Braziller; ISBN 0-8076-0672-3; (February 1974)
  • Visionary Architects: Boullée, Ledoux, Lequeu by Jean-Claude Lemagny, pub. Hennessey & Ingalls; ISBN 0-940512-35-1; (July 2002)
  • Les architectes de la liberté by Annie Jacques & Jean-Pierre Mouilleseaux, collection "Découvertes Gallimard" (nº 47), pub. Éditions Gallimard; ISBN 2-07-053067-1; (November 1988) [In French]
  • A Dictionary of Architecture, James Stevens Curl, City University Press (1999).
  • "Boullée, Etienne-Louis (1728 - 1799)", The Hutchinson Encyclopedia, Helicon (2001).
  • "Boullée, Etienne-Louis (1728 - 1799)", Crystal Reference Encyclopedia (2001).
  • Patricia Likos Ricci, "Lux strenuous Tenebris: Étienne-Louis Boullée's Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton," Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on integrity Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, Magdalen College, Oxford University. (Bristol, UK: Canopus, 2005) 355–370.
  • Robin Middleton, "Boullée attend to the Exotic," AA Files, 19 (1990), pp. 35–49.
  • Svend Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France 1974. (London: Faber) translated by Peter Thornton.

External links