Book Description

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 25. Chapters: 18th-century French art, Charles-Louis Clerisseau, Chateau de Compiegne, Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Directoire style, Eglise Saint-Pothin, Empire style, Etienne-Louis Boullee, Gout grec, Grand Palais, Grand Theatre de Bordeaux, Hotel des Monnaies, Paris, Hotel Grimod de La Reyniere, Jean-Laurent Le Geay, Maison carree d'Arlac, Mathurin Crucy, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Paris, Opera de Marseille, Opera Nouvel, Palais de la Bourse (Nantes), Perrault's Colonnade, Pierre-Francois-Leonard Fontaine, Pierre-Louis Moreau-Desproux, Rennes Cathedral, Theatre Graslin. Excerpt: Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (March 21, 1736 - November 18, 1806) was one of the earliest exponents of French Neoclassical architecture. He used his knowledge of architectural theory to design not only in domestic architecture but town planning; as a consequence of his visionary plan for the Ideal City of Chaux, he became known as a utopian. His greatest works were funded by the French monarchy and came to be perceived as symbols of the Ancien Regime rather than Utopia. The French Revolution hampered his career; much of his work was destroyed in the nineteenth century. In 1804 he published a collection of his designs under the title "Architecture considered in relation to art, morals, and legislation." In this book he took the opportunity of revising his earlier designs, making them more rigorously neoclassical and up to date. This revision has distorted an accurate assessment of his role in the evolution of Neoclassical architecture. His most ambitious work was the uncompleted Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, an idealistic and visionary town showing many examples of architecture parlante. Conversely his works and commissions also included the more mundane and everyday architecture such as approximately sixty elaborate toll gates in the Wall of...