ARCHITECTS AS ENGINEERS: THE IRON REINFORCEMENT OF ENTABLATURES IN

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE
Author(s): Robin Middleton
Source: AA Files, No. 9 (Summer 1985), pp. 54-64
Published by: Architectural Association School of Architecture
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AS

ARCHITECTS
THE

IRON
OF

ENGINEERS

REINFORCEMENT

ENTABLATURES

IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY

FRANCE

Robin Middleton

rom the late seventeenth century onwards the

leading theoristsof
architecture inFrance assumed that the refinement of structural
JL
form and its proper expression in building was an essential
feature in the reinvigoration of the classical tradition on which they had
embarked. Their theoretical premise, however, was based on the study

of national, Gothic building rather than the architecture of classical

? one thinks in
antiquity
particular of theorists such asA. F. Frezier,
his
G.
and
advisers
Soufflot
J. R. Perronet and E. Gauthey, and
J.
F.
P.
Patte.
Blondel
and
All
studied
theGothic structural system in the
J.
belief that itmight be adapted to classical forms.There was no question

ofGothic revivalism. They not only demanded a strictadherence to the

classical repertoire, they required that itshould be more limited in scope
than before. In particular they sought to evolve an architecture that
relied on the use of the free-standingcolumn and itsrelated lintel? the
column regarded no longer as a decorative feature but as the principal
formal and structural element in architecture.There were differences in
theiropinions, but they all regarded this arrangement as closer in spirit
to that of classical antiquity ? and also, paradoxically, to that of their
Gothic past? than the heavily modelled architecture of the late seven?
teenth century. The buildings upon which they focused their attention
involved,without fail, columnar episodes, sometimes supporting arches
rather than lintels.
The history of eighteenth-century architecture in France can be ?
indeed has been ? written with reference to a series of such buildings
alone, startingwith Claude Perrault's colonnade on the east frontof the
Louvre, begun in 1667; passing to JulesHardouin Mansart and Robert
de Cotte's chapel atVersailles, begun in 1698, finished in 1710; and so to
J.N. Servandoni's west front at Saint Sulpice, designed first in 1732,
completed in 1777, and Soufflot's Sainte Genevieve, approved in 1756,
with later reference, perhaps, toA. J.Gabriel's buildings on the Place
Louis XV, begun in 1758, and to Contant d'lvry's Madeleine of 1763
and his church of SaintVaast atArras of 1774.These particular buildings
all have columns and lintels; in addition theyhave in common the use of
iron reinforcement in their entablatures. Such use isunprecedented.
Metals had, of course, been used structurally in the buildings of
classical antiquity, and even inGothic construction iron bars were
sometimes introduced ? and this was well known; Soufflot, for
instance, discussed the iron reinforcement in the vaults of Saint Etienne
duMont at theAcademy inMarch 1773 (P. V., VLTI, pp. 146-8)? but the
extensive use of iron reinforcement in the columns and lintels of the
Louvre colonnade seemed to eighteenth-century theorists tomark a
new era in structural enterprise. The Louvre colonnade was upheld

as not only
throughout the century
stylistically advanced but also, it
must be emphasized, structurally.The arrangement of iron bars linking
the columns and lintels of the Louvre facade to the stabilizing wall
behind was firstillustrated? albeit partially? in 1755, inPierre Patte's

Etudes d*architecture.Though Patte included the pediment, he did not

indicate any iron reinforcement. Patte's somewhat obsessive interest in
building techniques emerged somewhat later, in 1767,with a letter in
theAnnee Litteraire attacking current building practices inParis, and, in
the same year, in his first
Memoire surVachievementdu grand portail de
He
de
Saint
was, as iswell known, hoping towin the com?
Veglise
Sulpice.
mission forhimself.He certainly discussed theuse of iron reinforcement
in the lintels of that facade, but his fuller and more influential investi?
gation of the subject came two years later, in 1769, in the seventh
chapter of hisMemoires sur lesobjets lesplus importantesde ^architecture,
a chapter, of sixtypages, entitled 'Parallele des meilleurs moyens usites,
jusqu'ici, pour construire les plate-bandes, et les plafonds des colon?
nades'. This is the firstand also the fullestaccount of iron reinforcement
to be published in the eighteenth century, and even J.B. Rondelet, inhis
Traite theorique etpratique de Vart de hatir of 1802,was to rely almost
entirely upon it.
Patte described how Perrault, following the example of theRoman
'Piliers de Tutuelle' that he had seen inBordeaux (Fig. 1),used relieving
arches to lighten the load on the entablatures on the Louvre (Fig. 2), in
particular in the pediment, but there remained the technical difficulty
that lintels inFrance must be built up with voussoirs ('claveaux' was the

eighteenth-century term for these stones, 'voussoirs' being reserved then

for the tapered stones used forvaults). The stones of France could not
provide the spans that the ancients had achieved with marble. With the
development of a style of architecture that was more consciously
antique, a technical resolution of the difficulty had to be found. Per
rault's brilliant and daring solution was to introduce iron reinforcement
throughout. He was the first,Patte held, to introduce iton this scale.
The very arrangement of coupling the columns at the Louvre, Patte
thought, was designed to achieve greater stability. A metal bar was
placed in the centre of each column to ensure coherence and to anchor
the two bars thatwere threaded through the upper part of the front
entablature and linked back, through a further system of bars set in the
beams, to thewall behind. Each bay was furtherstabilized by two cross?
bars, forming anX. The barswere all about two inches square in section.
The voussoirs of the front entablature were linked to one another with
? sheer
links,we would now call them. There is a
independent Z-bars
lotmore byway of detail inPane's description, though nothing byway
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of structural theory other than the remark? certainly of significance?

that the aim throughout was to use iron in tension: 'Ce me paroit prin
cipalement donner une force inebraniable ? sa b?tisse, c'est que le ferne
porte rien et ne fait exactement que la fonction de tirerpour retenir la

poussee des architraves et solider]Taxe des colonnades; procede qui doit

necessairement prod?ire la plus grande resistance que Ton puisse esperer
de lapart du fer' (p. 273).
Patte illustratedand described at similar length the arrangement of the
iron reinforcement inA. J.Gabriel's colonnades on thePlace Louis XV

(Fig. 3) and the second order of J.N. Servandoni's portico at Saint

? he did not know what
arrangement had been adopted
Sulpice (Fig. 4)
for the firstorder. Both buildings had been the responsibility, he noted,
of Besnard (who worked also on Gabriel's Ecole Militaire), and it is evi?

dent that Patte consulted him on the details of erection. Indeed Patte
hints at an even greater degree of participation in the Place Louis XV:

'Comme j'ai ete temoin de toutes les attentions que Ton a apporte pour
operer la perfection de cette construction, j'espere qu'on me scaura gre
d'entrer dans tous les details' (p. 278). His greater knowledge of struc?
tural details is in evidence throughout this section, but it serves only to
show that though therewas more complexity in the reinforcement on
the Place Louis XV ? the various bars in the entablature were, for
instance,more systematically linked together to form a coherent frame?
work ? therewas as yet no theory of mechanics to account for the
design. Similarly, at Saint Sulpice, though the superimposed orders
made farmore problematical the achievement of stability, and in con?
sequence more elaborate than ever before the design of the reinforce?
ment ? with a flat curved bar in
compression introduced by way of a
arch
between
the
tie-bars
relieving
emerging from the cores of the
columns ? there isno evidence that a coherent theory ofmechanics sus?
tained the design.

1.P. Patte,Memoires sur lesobjets lesplus importants... (1769),PlateXII.

Fig. 5 showsa detail of theconstructionof thePiliers de Tutuelle'at Bordeaux,as
recordedbyCharlesPerrault.Figs. 6, 7,8 showdetails ofan arrangementof
reinforcement
designedbyPatte.

iWP'V7

2.P. Patte,Memoires sur lesobjets lesplus importants... (1769),PlateXIII.

Plans, sectionsand elevationsdetailing theironreinforcement
of theLouvre
colonnade

AA FILES

by Claude

Perrault.

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if J

None the less,having dealt with three lesser examples ? the portico
by Pierre Desmaisons for theTheatin church in theRue de Lille (1747),
that on the north front of the Palais Royal, and another, in brick,
designed by Lamotte forSaint Petersburg?Patte did offer some general
guidelines for architects embarking on such construction: 'Comme je
suis persuade que Ton peut raisonner la construction des plate-bandes
egalement comme celle de toutes les autres vo?tes, je crois devoir
a
developper ma pensee ? ce sujet' (p. 314). He offered design of his own

byway of demonstration.
Firstly, columns must be designed to bear theweight of the entab?
lature and anywalling or vaulting above (he referredhere to J.R. Per
ronet's calculation of the resistance of stones based on measurements
taken of the columns

in the thirteenth-century refectory of Saint

Secondly, a single entablature, with deep vous?
Martin-des-Champs).
soirs,was to be preferred to superimposed layers of beams, aswas more

common

in practice ?

and cheaper. The voussoirs might be linked

with
independent Z-bars. As to any reliable calculation of the
together
car?
breaking-strength of iron, he could offerno certainty. Buffon had
ried out a number of experiments and tabulated his results inL Art du
serrurier (pp. 8-9), but itwas evident that the qualities of iron varied
greatly and that any increase in cross-section did not necessarily lead to
a proportional

increase in strength, the very process ofmaking larger

sections often leading to a decrease in strength through successive re
heatings. The only certainty was that the eye or anchor fixing the
horizontal reinforcing bars to the vertical ones was likely to be the
weakest point, and these anchors were weaker when formed as a square
thanwhen simply curved. The reinforcing ironsmight be painted with
two coats of oil paint to prevent rust, though many considered this un?
necessary, thewhole being regarded as waterproof anyway; the bars
might, alternatively, be coated with lead or, as at Saint Sulpice, wrapped
3. P. Patte,Memoires sur lesobjets lesplus
imortants... (1769),PlatesXIVand XV.
Plans, sections,elevationsand details of the
ironreinforcement
of thebuildingson the
Place LouisXV(Place de laConcorde)
byA.]. Gabriel.

opposite

page:

4.P. Patte,Memoires sur lesobjets lesplus

importants...

(1769), PlateXVI.

Figs. 1,2,3: details of theironreinforcement

of
thesecondorderof thewestfront ofSaint
SulpicebyJ.-N.

Servandoni.

Figs. 4, 5,6: details of theironreinforcement

of
theportico ofSainteA nne byPierre

Desmaisons.

Figs. 7, 8, 9: details of ironreinforcement

ofthe
northporticoof thePalais Royal by
Constant-d'Ivry.

Figs. 10,11,12: details of theiron

reinforcement
ofa brickentablaturebuiltat
SaintPetersburgto thedesignofM.de
Lamotte.

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inbitumenized hemp (filassegaudronnee). In general ironwas to be con?

sidered as a safeguard rather than a basic means of construction, and it
was to be used in tension rather than in compression (Perrault's arrange?
ment at theLouvre thus being preferable to Servandoni's andGabriel's)
and,most important of all, the reinforcing bars should be placed at the
bottom of the entablature. Doubling them up was to no great purpose,
he believed, as the vertical rods within the columns could not be cor?
a
respondingly duplicated and the joint there thus remained point of
weakness. On the whole Patte's analysis, if restricted, was sound,
though curiously he could not see the point of the cross-bracingPerrault
had introduced at theLouvre.
When Patte was required to take up these considerations once again,

in the sixthvolumne of J.F. Blondel's Coursd'architecture, published in

1777, he simply referred his readers back to theMemoires (Cours, VI,
p. 165), though he did describe the reinforcement in the Louvre pedi?
ment and,when reproducing his places from theEtudes, indicated the
position of the iron there for the firsttime (Cours, VI, pp. 164-170, pi.
105-7). Likewise, as already noted, when J.B. Rondelet dealt with these
matters inUArt de Batir in 1802, he relied forhis information on Patte's
Memoires sur les objets lesplus importants ... His illustrations derive
directly from Patte. Though Rondelet was able to add to his range of
examples theportico of J.G. Soufflot's SainteGenevieve, with which he
himself had been directly concerned. The construction of this great
church and the polemic it stirred have been so thoroughly analysed in
recentyears that any furtherconsideration is surelyunnecessary, suffice
it to note that,despite all the experiments conducted by Soufflot and his
associates,Rondelet was able to provide no evidence inhis treatiseof any
enlarged understanding of the mechanical properties of reinforced
lintels. Patte's analysis was not yet superseded, even in Rondelet's
greatly revised edition ofUArt de Batir, of 1834.

AA FILES

But Patte, it is now apparent, was not the only theorist of iron re?
inforcement in the eighteenth century to set down his ideas.A manu?
script,with pages numbered 1 to 139 and with 37 finely drawn plates,
thewhole clearly intended forpublication, has recently been found in
Paris ? 'Essay en forme de traite sur la construction ou Ton propose une
portion d'eglise pour modele avec une observation sur lesparties de con?
struction que ne sy rencontrent pas'. This was in the libraryof the archi?

tectPierre II Rousseau, designer of theHotel de Salm inParis, when he

died inNantes on 24 September 1829, at the age of 78. Itwas purchased
then by theDirecteur de l'Ecole des Freres de laDoctrine Chretienne
and given to a local architect,Lassay. The assumption has been that it is
thework ofRousseau. Though itmight indeed have been copied out by
him, and though he might have contributed something to it, it ismore
likely to be thework of his father-in-law,Nicolas Marie Potain (1713
1796), admired by C. N. Cochin, it should be remembered, alongside
Soufflot, for having effected 'un retour d'un meilleur goust' (Memoires
inedits ... (1880), pp. 141-2).The architectural details in the illustrations
aremore old-fashioned than one would expect fromPierre Rousseau, as
are the published sources referred to in the text? J.F. BlondePs Cours
d'architecture (1675-83), J. B. de laRue's Traite de la coupe despierres
d'architecturede
(1738-9), and Robert Pitrou's Recueil de differentsprojets
? but more
...
1756
in
the
Tardiff
engineer
by
charpente
published

important is the fact that a draftmanuscript on construction by Potain

was being read by themembers of theAcademie d'Architecture on 1
February 1762 (P. K, VII, p. 89). A few years later, in 1767, Potain pub?
lished Traite des ordresd'architecture,described as the firstpart of amore
a
comprehensive treatise. If the present manuscript is indeed part of this
intended work ? and mention ismade in the Traite des ordres of yet
another section to follow, on timber construction ? one may assume
that its non-publication was owing to the fact that itwas rendered

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redundant with the publication,

objects lesplus importants...

in 1769, of Patte's Memoires sur les

Many of the subjects treated in the manuscript relate to Potain's

known interests and activities.He was A. J.Gabriel's 'premier dessin
ateur' from 1748 onwards, working atVersailles and Fontainebleau, in
charge of the buildings on the Place Louis XV from 1754 to 1770, and,
from 1768, for four years, of thework at theEcole Militaire. In 1763 he
succeeded Soufflot as architect of the cathedral of Rennes, where he
designed a basilical churchwith free-standingcolumns between the nave
and aisles, thatwas startedonly in 1786, to a revised design byMathutin
Crucy, and in 1764 he was commissioned to build the church of Saint

Germain-en-Laye, another basilical churchwith free-standingcolumns,

thatwas begun in the following year, but soon suspended and taken up
again only in 1787 and continued for four years. His son-in-law, Pierre
II Rousseau, was involved with this church. The present building isby

A. J.Malpiece and A. J.Moutier, who erected it in 1823 and 1824.

The manuscript illustrates? and these are the only known illus?
trations of this? the arrangement of the iron reinforcing in the archi?
traves of the chapel at the chateau of Versailles. Potain, as Gabriel's
'premier dessinateur', had access to such information. The manuscript

is chiefly concerned with free-standing columns, several of the designs

illustrated might thus relate to early proposals forRennes or Saint
Germain-en-Laye. Finally, the last illustration in the manuscript
describes theworkings of the three-storey lavatory-block at theEcole
Militaire, the building ofwhich was inPotain's own charge. It is thus
not altogether unreasonable to assume that the notions and information

contained in themanuscript date from themid-1760s and that their

authorwas Potain?though
thepresent copy might have been thework
of his son-in-law,Pierre IIRousseau, inwhose possession itwas in 1829.
The treatise appears to be the firston iron-reinforced construction.

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FILES 9

6.P. Potain?,MS 'Essay

de traitesurla construction9,? ^
enforme
Plates 10,11,12.Plan and detailsof ironworkand cross-section

the
Versailles
system
showing
irm-reinforcement
ofthechapelat
^^^Hh^^^^^IH^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I^^H^^m

model church.
adaptedfor use in the

^XlflfilaEfflB^^'.III Ml

1 11?

:?'v ti

j Iii'11

M iilliMtnX
MM

^IIIpBB^^m^m

59
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That, certainly, is the claim of itsauthor: 'peut-etre lepremier essay qui

ce soit donne en forme de traite sur une matiere aussy serieuse qu'inter
ressant' (p. 1).The guiding aim? which is to be expected in themiddle
?
years of the century was 'une attention suivie a tout ce qui peut con

tribuer a la solidite, sans trop de pesanteur* (p. 3).

The essay beginswith a consideration of the qualities of lime, sand and
stone, with recommendations for their application. Remarks of this
nature had already appeared in engineering treatisesandwere to become
even more familiar in thewritings of Patte and, later,Le Camus de
Mezieres ? see, for instance,Le Guide de ceux qui veulent batir, of 1781.
Next came the examination of site conditions ? ascertained through
trial holes ? and the setting-out and laying of foundations, whether on
timber piles and rafts or with inverse arches of stone or cellars. The
?
building ofwalls follows with a recommendation that hard stone be
used up to six feet,at least, and for all heavily loaded areas. The model to
which reference ismade throughout is a section through the nave, aisle
and side chapel of a church, with flying buttresses over and vaults of
stone or brick (Fig. 5). Timber was to be dispensed with. More than half
the treatise? seventy pages and more ? is given over to possible vari?
ations in this construction, inparticular to themethod of reinforcement
for the architraves of stone set above the free-standing columns. The
free-standing column, one should note, is the only support considered
acceptable between thenave and the aisles.Three basic methods forplac?
ing the iron reinforcing bars are described and analysed: first,as atVer?
sailles,with the bar put in a channel on the underside of the voussoirs,
concealed by a fillet of stone, or plastered (Fig. 6); second, as in the
Louvre colonnade, with the bar set above the voussoirs with indepen?
dent Z-shaped sheer linksbetween the voussoirs (Fig. 7); and, third,as in
the firstand second order of Saint Sulpice, with bars top and bottom
linked by ties between the voussoirs to form a rigid frame (Fig. 8). The

arrangement over the firstorder isdescribed as the strongestof itssort in

France, but only that over the second order, less complex, is illustrated.
It isnot quite the same as that shown by Patte. The curved bar acting as
a relieving arch isnot included. Each of the threemethods illustrated, it
is important to note, is shown not in itsoriginal position ? that is, at
? but as itwould be if
Versailles, theLouvre or Saint Sulpice
adapted for
use in the church chosen for a model, which might account for the
discrepancy between Patte's Saint Sulpice arrangement and that shown
here. Three furthervariations for iron reinforcement are offered, each
use of
parallel reinforcing bars set in the underside of the
involving the
with
each
architrave,
progressively fewer related bars and simpler joint?
The
the
last,
ing.
simplest of all, is themost efficient (Fig. 9).
The remaining section on iron reinforcement deals with the problem
of setting the face of an architrave flushwith the front of a column, a
hazardous, visually disturbing operation which provides the occasion
for theoretical remark (p. 91):
nous

ne sommes

plus dans

une
ces temps ou
plus

construction

paroissoit

sur

prenante,plus elle etoitbelle; c'etoit leprincipede ^architecturegothique.L'on

est
ce

tente de croire
constructeurs
que nous, en
cependant
qu'ils etoient meilleures
toutte leur etude a
les forces dont-ils avoient besoin,
qu'ils metoient
masquer

pour que le restde Pedificeparoit d'une legereteincomprehensible.

Notre

au contraire, non seulement

requiert de la solidite, mais il
ne
cette solidite soit apparente,
toutte construction
ainsy
qui
recues.
pas le spectateur sur cet article, pechera contre les principles

architecture

faut encore
tranquilisera

que

Jacques-Francois Blondel held to much the same opinion. There is

?
more, in the chapter on lightweight vaulting and roof construction
the new flat-bricksystemof vaulting being preferred here to all others?
with reference toGothic architecture, and it isof some significance that
the chapel atVersailles is judged superior in audacity and lightness of
form to any of itsGothic precursors. Gothic architects, the author says,

AA

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FILES 9

disguised the forces involved in their buildings by using flying but?

tresses. 'Malgre cette pratique dans leur execution/ he continues, 'on
n'en voit point d'aussy legereque cette chapelle; on peut la regarder avec
juste raison comme un chefd'oeuvre de construction, quoy que plusiers
edifices gothiques paroissent plus legers, en les examinant Ton trouvera
qu'ils le sont beaucoup moins que celuy cy' (p. 106).
That, to all intentsand purposes, is the final summation. The remain?
ingpages of themanuscript are devoted to short comments on themak?
ingof roof terraces, balustrades, embankments and quays, sewers and
lavatories? those inparticular at the Invalides and theEcole Militaire.
The essay reflects faithfully the concerns ofmid-eighteenth-century
theorists? a desire for elegant and economical construction based on a
close studyofGothic, but conceived in a form that is rigorously antique,
in the image of ancient Greece. Greek architecture, though virtually
? 'LesGrecs
unknown, isregarded fixedly as the fountainhead
que nous

regardons comme les peres de Parchitecture, et dont nous suivons les

principes' (p. 43). The incompatibility of these two systems of archi?
tecturewas to be resolved bymeans of the latest technical refinements?

arches and vaults of lightweight brick and tile construction (theComte

d'Espie's Maniere de rendre toutessortesd'edifices incombustiblesou traite
de la constructiondes vo?tesfaites avec des briques etdu pl?tre, which set
the fashion,was published in 1754) and also, as I have emphasized, iron
reinforced lintels (Fig. 10).The building inwhich these new ideals and
? the
colonnaded
expertise were to find expression was the church
basilical church that appeared in France around 1764 and became
increasingly popular in the years that followed: Potain's churches for
Rennes and Saint-Germain-en-Laye, L. F. Trouard's Saint Pierre at

Montreuil, and, best known of all, J.F. T. Chalgrin's Saint Philippe-du

Roule, inParis. The model offered in themanuscript might, as already
noted, relate to Potain's early projects, though it isworth remarking

& P. Potain?,MS 'Essayenformede traitesur la construction',Plates 16,17.

Sectionsand details oftheiron-reinforcement
systemofthewestportico ofSaint
use
in
the
model
church.
Sulpiceadaptedfor

7. P. Potain?, MS

'Essay

en
sur la construction',
forme de traite

Plate

14.

Sectionsand details showingtheiron-reinforcement

systemof theLouvre
colonnadeadaptedfor use in themodel church.
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that it is close in style and detail to J.B. Le Brument's design, of 1767, for
theMadeleine at Rouen, where work was begun in 1773 and where
Patte was called in, in 1774, to provide expert advice on the cause of the
cracking and spalling of the stones of theportico. The master-mason was
Pierre Pradeaux; his assistant for the iron-reinforcingwas Le Trone,
who had already worked on the towers of Saint Sulpice. Patte seems to
have been involved, indifferentways, in almost all the iron-reinforced
buildings of themid-eighteenth century.
The brief summaries of Patte's Memoire and the unpublished manu?

script that I have offeredmake clear, I hope, theway inwhich architects,

however much theymight be concerned ? obsessed even ? by con?
struction,were conditioned by their training. They were determined
an
orthogonal architec?
throughout the eighteenth century to achieve
ture, an architecture based on themore or less static relationship of sup?
port and load. They wanted columns and lintels.Though they relied on

:'

f///A I

T/777T.~M^fl

an

analogy with Gothic construction to allow for all lightness of con?

struction and all whittling away of mass, theywere quite willing to
disregard the dynamic nature of theGothic system,which, as iswell
known, they understood tolerably well. Their structural bravura was
altogether determined by their aesthetic aims, not by any real grasp of

engineering principles.
In the early 1770s, as JacquesHeyman has recently shown,when Patte
and Emiland Gauthey were disputing the structureof Sainte Genevieve,
Patte was unable to grasp the concept of inclined forces within the

dome. Gauthey, the engineer, shared Patte's aesthetic aims, but he was
willing and able to envisage alternatives based on engineering par?
ameters. Gauthey demonstrated that the four supporting piers of Souf
flot's dome could, inmechanical terms, be altogether eliminated, pro?
vided that raking buttresses were designed to carry the thrusts right
down to the ground. Later, in the 1790s, the dispute concerning the

f''^^"'
''^^^

X\Y\T

? *construction',

Plate 25.Details and sectionsofa proposed

'

i
A

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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dorne of Sainte Genevieve still unresolved, Rondelet, whom one is

inclined to think of as an engineer rather than an architect, so heedless
was he of formal values, revealed himself just as limited inhis outlook as
Patte. In his famous Memoire of 1797 he determined to prove that
spherical domes do not thrust.He was unwilling, perhaps unable, to
comprehend Gauthey's arguments.Gauthey had to rebuke him, rather
rudely, in aMemoire of the following year. In the successive committees
setup in 1796 and after to report on the structure of Sainte Genevieve,
there is this same split in comprehension ? the engineers are divided
firmly from the architects. The engineers,with Gauthey at their head,
have an understanding of themechanics of the structure; the architects,
with Rondelet at their head, can conceive of the structure only within

the frame of reference provided by their formal training.They see it in

termsof load and support, the column and lintel.
Curiously, even when we move some years on, into the nineteenth

century, we findmuch the same pattern of thinking. Aesthetic sen?

sibilities have changed by then. The urgent dynamism ofGothic con?
?
struction is appreciated as never before and upheld above all else
especially the column and lintel. Viollet-le-Duc villifies Vignon's
Madeleine in his Entretiens. He rejectswhat he recognizes asmakeshift
construction of iron-reinforced lintels, and himself proposes a radical
new architecture based on a study ofGothic structural principles (his
must be stressed, scarcely, ifat all, in
knowledge ofGothic structure, it
advance of that of Perronet or Gauthey) which involves rakingmem?
bers of iron for support.His designs are all toowell known. But though
are
theypurport to derive from the dictates of structuralprinciples, they
no more mechanically efficient than the designs of Potain or Patte.
Viollet-le-Duc knew engineers such as Polon^eau and Eiffel?though he
seems to have fallen out with Polon^eau owing to the lack of publicity
he received for his work on the imperial train? but he seems not to

10.P. Potain?,MS 'Essayenformede traitesur la construction\Plates 30,31.

nave and sideaislesachieved
Sectionsshowingthevaultingand roofcoveringfor
with theuse ofstonearches,stoneslabsand/or tilingobviating theuse oftimber.

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

have consulted with them on engineering matters. Indeed, itwas Eiffel

who asked advice fromViollet-le-Duc on themix for the bronze mantle
ironmembers are hope?
for the Statue of Liberty. All Viollet-le-Duc's
are
an
outcome
not
oversized.
the
of
lessly
They
understanding of the
mechanical principles of Gothic construction or the structural prop?
erties of iron; they are based on his aesthetic delight in the raking stone
forms ofGothic architecture (Figs. 11,12).
Architects, aswe know, do not make good engineers; even themost
hardened of them prefer aesthetic to technical realities.

Heyman, J., 'The crossing piers of the Pantheon', to be published.

Lemonnier, H., Proces-verbaux de l'Academie Royale d'Architecture 1671-1793 (Paris,
1911-26).
Mathieu, M., Pierre Patte, sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris, 1940).
?Rouen: Un example du debat theoriqiie
Mouilleseux,
J.:P., 'L'Eglise de laMadeleine
de l'architecture sacree au temps de Soufflot', in Soufflot et^architecture des lumieres,
edited byM. Mosser and D. Rabreau (Paris, 1980).
Wilcox, R. P., Timber and Iron Reinforcement inEarly Buildings (Society of
Antiquaries,

London,

1981).

References
et les limites de l'invention technique', in
J., 'Soufflot, Sainte Genevieve
Soufflotetson Temps, exhibition catalogue, edited byM. Gallet etal. (Paris, 1980),
pp. 154-66.

Guillerme,

11. Viollet-le-Duc,

(Arc\ inDictionnaire

raisonne

de Yarchitecture

francaise

ChartresCathedral.
(1854-68),Fig. 54.Flyingbuttress,

12. Viollet-le-Duc,

'Douzieme

entretien'(1872),

Fig.

18. Vaulted

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chamber.

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