“Architectural education holds an established place in universities throughout

the globe and enjoys a clear and productive relationship with the professional
practice of architecture. It has grown to become a rich and diverse discipline in
which instruction in subjects ranging from the technologies of building to the
history and theories of architecture sits alongside the central activity of the
design studio. Alex Griffin’s study of the first formal school of architecture,
the Académie Royale d’Architecture (1671-1793), offers the first detailed
account of that institution and its relation to the architectural and political
events of pre-revolutionary France, but also provides an invaluable historical
perspective from which to view the scope and practices of education in the
twenty-first century.”
Dean Hawkes, Emeritus Professor, Welsh School of Architecture,
Cardiff University and Emeritus Fellow, Darwin College,
University of Cambridge, UK

“In this original and scholarly work, Dr Alex Griffin has written the first
account of the Académie Royale d’Architecture in 17th and 18th century Paris,
the first school of architecture that adopted a formal educational curriculum.
The work is unique in contextualising the development of architectural educa-
tion at a time of significant cultural change, during the Enlightenment period
when architecture was immersed in scientific and artistic debates about the
veracity and universality of the classical canon. In addition to providing his-
torical commentary on the academy itself and its membership, Dr Griffin’s
book is also of value in exploring the often-nuanced philosophical disputes that
surrounded the issue of architectural ‘style’, and how this was manifested in
design work. Such debates provided a useful theoretical resource for design
entries to the Grand Prix competition that facilitated the creation of an elite
group of architectural practitioners and theoreticians. Besides being an impor-
tant historical investigation, Alex Griffin’s book is also instructive in prompting
critical reflection on contemporary architectural education, giving scope to a
much-needed debate about the future of the architectural profession in an age
of radical change and uncertainty.”
Nicholas Temple, Professor of Architecture,
University of Huddersfield, UK
The Rise of Academic
Architectural Education

Academic architectural education started with the inauguration of the Acadé-

mie d’Architecture on 3 December 1671 in France. It was the first institution to
be devoted solely to the study of architecture, and its school was the first dedi-
cated to the explicit training of architectural students. The Académie was
abolished in 1793, during the revolutionary turmoil that besieged France at the
end of the eighteenth century, although the architectural educational tradition
that arose from it was resurrected with the formation of the École des Beaux-
Arts and prevails in the ideologies and activities of schools of architecture
throughout the world today.
This book traces the previously neglected history of the Académie’s develop-
ment and its enduring influence on subsequent architectural schools throughout
the following centuries to the present day. Providing a valuable context for
current discussions in architectural education, The Rise of Academic Archi-
tectural Education is a useful resource for students and researchers interested in
the history and theory of art and architecture.

Alexander Griffin was educated at the University of Huddesfield, Liverpool

John Moores University, and the University of Sheffield. He currently works in
the School of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Huddersfield,
and is the founder of Oblong Architecture, a RIBA award winning practice.
Alexander, and his wife Karen, also lead Sheffield Vineyard Church.
Routledge Research in Architectural History

Series Editor: Nicholas Temple

Books in this series look in detail at aspects of architectural history from an

academic viewpoint. Written by international experts, the volumes cover a
range of topics from the origins of building types, the relationship of archi-
tectural designs to their sites, explorations of the works of specific architects, to
the development of tools and design processes, and beyond. Written for the
researcher and scholar, we are looking for innovative research to join our pub-
lications in architectural history.

Time, History and Architecture

Essays on Critical Historiography
Gevork Hartoonian

The Rise of Academic Architectural Education

The Origins and Enduring Influence of the Académie d’Architecture
Alexander Griffin

https://www.routledge.com/architecture/series/RRAHIST
The Rise of Academic
Architectural Education
The Origins and Enduring Influence of the
Académie d’Architecture

Alexander Griffin
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Alexander Griffin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Griffin, Alexander (Alexander L.), author.
Title: The rise of academic architectural education : the origins and enduring
influence of the Acadâemie d’architecture / Alexander Griffin.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2020. |
Series: Routledge research in architectural history | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019009050 | ISBN 9781138562271 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Acadâemie royale d’architecture (France)--History. |
Architecture--Study and teaching--France--History.
Classification: LCC NA2310.F8 A355 2019 | DDC 720.71--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009050

ISBN: 978-1-138-56227-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-70994-8 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
by Taylor & Francis Books
Contents

List of figures viii

Acknowledgements xii

Introduction 1
1 The Origins of Academic Education 8
2 The Formation of the Académie d’Architecture 32
3 The Académie’s Early Ideology 50
4 The School of the Académie 70
5 Philosophical and Stylistic Debate on Architectural Style 88
6 The Professional Expression of the Académie’s Ideology 100
7 The Suppression of the Académie 124
8 The Revival of the Former Académie 137
9 The Enduring Influence of the Academic Tradition at the École 152

Appendix 1: Salient institutional titles associated with academic

architectural education in Paris 163
Appendix 2: Membres of the Académie d’Architecture 167
Appendix 3: Winners of the Grand Prix competitions 171
Bibliography 178
Index 186
Figures

2.1 The Collège des Quatre-Nations, Paris. The building was

constructed on the bank of the Seine opposite the Louvre and
currently houses the tomb of Mazarin in the college chapel.
After the closure of the building during the Revolution, the
complex was used for various purposes. However, in 1805 it
was given to the Institut de France and became known as the
Palais de l’Institut de France. 38
2.2a–b The Collège des Quatre-Nations, Paris. First floor plan (a –
extract, b – scaled section of extract), drawn 1662. Pen, ink
and coloured paint on paper. The caption adjacent to the
extracted area reads, ‘Les quatre académies pour’ and
continues in the rooms of the building, ‘l’architecture /
mathématiques / peinture et sculpture / pour les ins ingenieur
fortification’. 39
2.3 The Palais Royal, Paris. Ground floor plan, drawn 1629. Pen,
ink, and coloured paint on paper. The Palais Brion is shown
on the left of the image. The toned area (by Author) denotes
the first residence of the Académie d’Architecture. 40
2.4a–c The Louvre, Paris. Ground floor plan, drawn 1756. Pen, ink,
and coloured paint on paper (grey area by Author). Regarding
the top plan (4a), at the bottom of the image, the grey area
denotes the extent that the Académie d’Architecture occupied
from 1692 to 1722, an extract of this area forms (4b); the grey
area to the top of the image denotes the extent the Académie
d’Architecture occupied from 1722 to 1793 when it was
abolished (formally the Le Grand Appartement de la Reine,
designed by Chambrigues in 1566 and 1570), an extract of this
area forms (4c). Regarding the bottom left plan (4b), the key to
the plan in Blondel’s Architecture Françoise reads (pp. 26–7): 41
 List of illustrations ix
2.5 The Louvre, Paris. Site perspective during the time of the
occupation of the Académie d’Architecture, from the Plan du
Turgot, 1739. Pen on paper drawn by Louis Bretez. Jacques-
François Blondel describes the area as being accurate at the
time of his writing (volume 4 was published between 1752 and
1756). It shows buildings that bear little relationship to the
Louvre within the central courtyard. 43
3.1a–b Engravings, Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. 1, p. 345 [a],
Vol. 2, p. LV [b]. Examples of some of the more beautiful
engraving of the Procès-Verbaux. 52
3.2a–b Engravings, Nicolas-François Blondel, Cours d’Architecture,
Vol. 1, Plate 1 [a], Plate VII [b]. Blondel dedicates the entire
first volume of his Cours to the study of the Orders and how
they relate to the entablature. The volume systematically
describes each Order in chronological sequence and uses
meticulously detailed engravings to express the depth, sectional
form and profile of each element which together comprise the
Order. The text is generally overburdened with a flood of
letters referring to the accompanying illustrations and would
probably not have appealed much to the average architect or
builder. Incidentally, after further research, the Académie
concluded that the Composite was not a recognised Order. 54
3.3a–b Engravings, Claude Perrault, Les Dix Livres d’Architecture,
inside cover [a] & p. 154 [b]. The collection of many beautiful
engravings throughout Perrault’s book drew a wide audience
of appreciative readers. Furthermore, the illustrations were
incredibly accurate such as the Basilica of Fano (right), which
depicts the likely construction technique of the ancient
building. The Basilica at Fano (in the province of Pesaro on the
Adriatic coast of Italy) is the only building to have been
designed and built by Vitruvius. 56
4.1 Engraving of elevations of façades facing the inner courtyard of
the Louvre, Paris, Jacques-François-Blondel, Architecture
Françoise, Vol. 4, plate 18. The Architecture Françoise
contains many excellent copperplate engravings, enhanced by a
short historical survey of architecture, a survey of Paris, and an
introduction to the basic principles of architecture. His
disciple, Pierre Patte, completed the fourth and final volume in
1777 after Jacques-François Blondel died in 1774. 75
4.2 Jean Pinard, Un Hôtel, main elevation, Premier Prix 1723,
original drawing. The oldest surviving Grand Prix competition
drawing. Tied paper, Chinese ink and wash, drawing measures
69  48 cm. Pinard was also commended for his entry in the
1922 Grand Prix. 80
x List of illustrations
4.3 Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, Un Momument Sépulcral
pour les Souverains d’un Grand Empire, Second Prix 1785.
Although Fontaine’s design is not as pure in form as Boullée’s
half buried sphere design, it still champions his idea that
immortality can be found in the memory of future generations;
a concept that was first expressed in 1765 by Diderot in the
Encyclopédie under the title Immortalité, though greatly
expounded in Boullée’s latter futuristic architecture. 81
5.1a–c Engravings, François Blondel, Cours d’Architecture, Vol. 1,
Plate 1. [a], Vol. 3 p. 752 & p. 794 [b and c]. Blondel
endeavoured to discover the universal principles that prevailed
in all ‘good’ architecture. His quest took the form of a
chronological chain of architecture, which he argued,
demonstrated a concatenation of architectural principles. The
left figure is an engraving that shows Vitruvius’ primitive hut
and that the same essential proportions have been continued in
Greek architecture. The middle figure is one example of
Blondel’s attempt to demonstrate the geometrical basis of
Neoclassical architecture; thus, it is beautiful, not merely to
the eye, but because it can be illustrated with mathematical
precision. The right figure is a list of dimensions and
proportions relating to the range of Orders by Palladio. It is
one of over ten pages of measurements and equations that
attempt to fuse together the works of the great architects with
universal proportions. 94
5.2 Claude Perrault, A Treatise of the Five Orders in Architecture.
The image portrays Perrault’s idea of a ‘module’, which
dictated the proportions of an Order and its relationship with
the entablature. The module was equivalent to one-third of the
diameter of the column, and each Order increased in height by
two modules; thus, the Tuscan Order measured 22 modules,
the Doric 24, the Ionic 26, the Corinthian 28 and the
Composite 30. The height of the entablature was fixed at six
modules for all Orders; however, the pedestal increased in
increments in the same way as the column height. 96
6.1 The Louvre (Eastern façade), Paris. Claude Perrault, Louis Le
Vau and Charles Le Brun (Roland Fréart de Chambray joined
the Petit Conseil in 1668). The final design comprised a
broader central pavilion with four paired columns supporting a
pediment. 104
 List of illustrations xi
6.2 Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Château Neuf, 1706–1709, front
façade and plan. Destroyed by fire in 1795 and again in 1871.
The Château Neuf is typical of the Baroque style propagated
by Jules Hardouin-Mansart at the building department; the
house design influenced most leading French architects during
the first half of the eighteenth century such as de Cotte
(Château des Rohan, 1727–1742), Germain Boffrand (Château
de la Malgrange 1712–1715 & Lunéville 1709–1715), Alexis
Delamair (Hôtel de Soubise 1704–1797), and Jean Aubert
(Chantilly stables 1721–1735). 108
6.3a–b Nicolas-François Blondel, Porte Saint Denis (South façade),
Paris, built 1673. Engraving, Nicolas-François Blondel,
Architecture Françoise ou Recueil des Plans, Elevations,
Coupes et Profiles, Vol. 3, Plate 310 (left); Photograph (right). 113
6.4 Jacques-François Blondel, Hôtel de Ville, former City Hall
(right of picture), to the East of the Place d’Armes, Metz,
1764–1771; the former guard house Corps de Garde (left of
picture), to the North of the Place d’Armes, completed 1771. 116
6.5 Libéral Bruant and Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Hôtel Royale des
Invalides, Paris, 1671–1709. 119
7.1 Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii, 1784. Oil on
canvas, 3.3  4.25m, commissioned by Louis XVI, painted in
Rome. The Oath was exhibited in 1785 and marked the
triumph of Neoclassicism over the Rococo style of the old
regime four years prior to the revolution of 1789. 127
8.1 The Palais des Etudes (partially built 1820–1832 by François
Debret and completed in 1840 by Félix Duban). The
photograph is of the East elevation and shows in the
foreground the Premiere Cour (also known as the Cour
Bonaparte) and the Deuxième Cour (also known as the Cour
d’Honour) to the rear of a low wall upon which once stood the
portico of the Château de Gaillon (recently restored and
returned to its original position at Gaillon). 144
Acknowledgements

This book is a development of a ten-year-long doctoral dissertation, which I

wrote while in full-time architectural practice, and during which my wife and I
had three children – I, therefore, have many people to thank for their assis-
tance, grace and patience.
My supervisor, Professor Peter Blundell-Jones, generously gave me his time
and often welcomed me to his house during a weekend so that I could continue
to hold down my job during the working week. I have fond memories of glaz-
ing at the Peak District countryside from his dining room table at Padley Mill
in Grindleford, where we would convene to discuss progress. I have benefited
from Peter’s curiosity, which would invariably unearth some oversight I had
made, but wishing not to leave me in the lurch, he would then point me in a
suitable direction (Peter had an uncommonly eclectic knowledge of academic
avenues that he could send his students down), and was content for me to reap
the benefit of ending up at a much better place. Without his abilities to focus
my mind on the specific goals of this book, I would still be attempting to tackle
a multitude of subjects far beyond the sensible remit of any one volume, and
indeed my ability. But I would wish not to give the impression that our dialo-
gues were only beneficial for me – I did, at least, afford Peter plenty of oppor-
tunities for him to exercise his splendid caustic wit. My lasting memory of Peter
chimes with the words of Doctor Fiona MacCarthy, which were spoken at his
funeral, ‘with him you always wanted to continue conversations’.
The friendly staff of the Institut de France and École des Beaux-Arts in Paris
were also very generous with their time and offered great insight into unpub-
lished insider knowledge of the institutions. Equally, Charles Hind, Jolanta
Kent and Jason Canham of the RIBA library in London helped to unearth
obscure French documents. Marilyn Sparrow of the Publications Department at
the Architectural Association was yet another giving individual. Christopher
Harnett helped to hide my spelling and grammar embarrassments, although any
lingering errors remain my fault.
I am also very grateful for the financial backing of the University of Sheffield,
which awarded me a research scholarship and allowed me to conduct my
research over a ten-year period, a luxury unfamiliar to current day researchers.
 Acknowledgements xiii
Likewise, I am grateful to the University of Huddersfield for the opportunity to
continue my research during the ten years after my PhD.
Lastly, this thesis would never have been accomplished without the patience
and support of my family. My wife, Karen, has been (and continues to be) my
mainstay of support. She is my best friend, and a continual source of encour-
agement; her ability to speak French much more fluently than I, has also been
very useful. She has hunted with me for books in the archives of the RIBA library
and helped to transcribe seventeenth-century French manuscripts in the annals of
the École when she could have visited the sights and sounds of London and Paris
instead, yet she has never complained. My children have also been very patient.
‘Hang on a minute!’ ‘Almost there!’ ‘Sorry I’m late, I just needed to finish a
paragraph’ are just a few phrases they are now very familiar with.
It is to Karen, Timothy, Peter and Mary that I dedicate this book.
Introduction

The academic architectural education tradition that is ingrained in the ideology

and activities of schools of architecture throughout the world today started
with the inauguration of the Académie d’Architecture on 3rd December 1671.
The Académie was the first institution to be devoted solely to the study of
architecture, and its school was the first dedicated to the explicit training of
architects. The contribution that the Académie made to architecture during its
lifetime was unrivalled, and the success it achieved in training architects caused
it to have a direct and significant influence on subsequent architectural schools
throughout the following centuries. Until 1742 the Académie was the only aca-
demic institution in Europe offering formal instruction in architecture, and
thereafter, though other architectural schools emerged, it remained the most
distinguished architectural academic institution until its suppression in 1793.1
The architectural Académie was the last in a collection of institutions that
were inaugurated during the seventeenth century. Armand Jean du Plessis,
better known as Cardinal Richelieu, founded the first French académie, the
Académie Française, in 1635 as a literary school. Thirteen years later, Louis
XIV’s favourite painter, Charles Le Brun, formed the Académie de Peinture et
de Sculpture. The success and admiration that these institutions gained led the
king to form a further six state-funded académies, the last being the Académie
d’Architecture.
The architectural institution initially comprised eight elected Membres who
were tasked with engaging in the fundamental architectural pursuit of the time,
namely, elucidating the most correct form of Classical architecture to advise the
king on his building programme, and to hold classes for the instruction of stu-
dent architects. The architect Nicolas-François Blondel, the first director of the
new architectural Académie, outlined its intended functions and activities at a
lecture on the last day of 1671. At the lecture, Blondel announced that the
Académie existed to practise a dual role. The first role was to study the history
of architecture, survey historic buildings and define the most correct form of
Classicism. In this respect, the Académie sought to acquire a body of knowl-
edge and to advise architects who were commissioned to design monarchic or
civic buildings. The second role was to teach their newly found knowledge to
‘students’; initially, these students comprised of anyone who turned up to
2 Introduction
weekly public lectures given by the Blondel, but during the middle of the
eighteenth century a teaching structure was devised that resembled an educa-
tional system that is practised in many current Western architectural schools.
During the latter years of the seventeenth century, Western culture reassessed
many of its underlying assumptions and generated new ideas that were to shape
subsequent thinking throughout the eighteenth century. By 1800, principles of
rationalism that before only existed in the domains of science and mathematics
had drifted into almost every area of life. The term ‘Enlightenment’ was used to
describe the illuminating power of personal intelligent light over the perceived
dark and anarchic ideas of institutions, both religious and royal. Many people
were quickly drawn towards the personal decision making that Enlightenment
philosophy proscribed, and whilst they did not initially forsake a belief in God
or a sense of communal identity, many grew to dislike the institutional cages
that they perceived were enclosing them.
The Académie’s ideology developed at a time when the Enlightenment’s atti-
tude towards human nature played a pivotal role in the reappraisal of political
and religious opinion throughout central Europe; it conducted its activities and
constructed its ideas within the context of Enlightenment thinking. When the
Académie was inaugurated, the prevailing epistemology that shaped the con-
tinental European philosophical landscape was distinctly rationalistic. The
Académie’s ideology initially emphasised the view that God had created the
universe on the basis of geometrical laws, and that these laws could be com-
prehended and applied to architecture. By the close of the eighteenth century,
the British interest in empiricism had captured the minds of many French thin-
kers, including many who worked at, or wished to influence, the academies.
Whilst those in charge at the Académie desired to continue a distinct rationa-
listic theoretical approach and architectural style, many students and prominent
architectural critics outside the academic system ridiculed their perceived anar-
chic viewpoint until eventually, warring words turned to actions.
During the eighteenth century, France increasingly felt the strain of wars with
neighbouring states. By the end of the century an expanding, educated public
looked on their social landscape with decreasing confidence. Moreover, the
devoted eyes of the king’s nation turned away from the perception that royalty
held some form of divine authority and gazed more on a personal positivist
belief. An antimonarchic sentiment began to steadily grow in the minds of
many French citizens, which eventually gave rise to the formation of the
republican Assemblée Nationale, which brought to an end a unique combina-
tion of political, social and economic systems that had been under monarchic
governance. The académies were a clear emblem of royal superiority. As the
revolutionary forces gained momentum during the second half of the eighteenth
century, the overwhelming perception held by the growing body of angry revo-
lutionaries was that it was necessary to remove the académies from the firm
grip of the king. It was the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture that bore the
brunt of a long and savage attack led by the artist Jacques-Louis David,
although the Académie d’Architecture and other related académies suffered the
 Introduction 3
same fate. What began with a complaint by some students towards the pro-
fesseurs and officers resulted in an onslaught against the French académies that
led to their total suppression. The Académie suffered significant disruption
during the French Revolution until 16 August 1793, when it was abolished
along with all French academic institutions. However, the academic archi-
tectural tradition continued with a string of institutions that, at least to begin
with, bore a close resemblance to the former Académie.
After the Revolution, the functions of the Académie d’Architecture were
conducted by two distinct organisations. All matters other than the schooling of
students became the responsibility of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, part of the
Institut de France. The architectural descendant of the school of the Académie
is somewhat more complicated. Julien-David Leroy led the school at his own
home for a short period while the École Polytechnique took the Académie’s
official scholastic functions. Six months after the Suppression, Leroy’s school
was accredited with the title École Spéciale d’Architecture and regained from
the École Polytechnique the official functions of the former Académie. The
school was then housed with the École Spéciale de la Peinture et de la Sculpture,
and they became collectively known as the École Spéciale de Peinture, Sculpture
et Architecture, after which its name changed again to the École Impériale et
Spéciale des Beaux-Arts. When the monarchy was restored in 1816, the school
became known as the École Royale et Spéciale des Beaux-Arts. In 1819 the
architectural and art schools were wholly fused together to form École des
Beaux-Arts. After students rioted in 1968, André Malraux, then the Ministère
de la Culture, closed the École on account that he regarded it as being anti-
quated. In so doing, Malraux brought an end to nearly 300 years of formal
academic architectural education at the Parisian Académie and École. In place
of the architectural educational system, Malraux instigated a collection of
Unités Pédagogiques d’Architecture. In 1986 the schools were collectively
renamed École d’Architecture, and later in 2005, their name changed again to
École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture.
A blinkered account of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French archi-
tectural academic education that is ignorant of historical context would run the
danger of over-simplifying the complex and mutable meaning of the term
Academy. It might also overlook the important nuances the term had acquired
during the Italian Renaissance as a pioneering education system, and lead to
missing out altogether what distinguishes the academy from other educational
types. This book, therefore, starts with an examination of the origins of the
academy itself.
Chapter 1, The origins of academic education, investigates the meanings of
the term Academy. It starts with tracking the definition of Academy from its
attribution to a forum led by Plato, until the fifteenth century, when it became
an important influence on Renaissance humanist thought. In so doing, this
chapter follows the path from ancient Greek tuition to the medieval university
and guild systems of education, and then moves on to show that, as the Italian
4 Introduction
humanist’s renewed interest in ancient Greek texts grew, so the number of new
academies that emerged during the fourteenth century increased.
Chapter 2, The formation of the Académie d’Architecture, examines the
French dominance of European culture, which emerged during the seventeenth
century, and the political and mercantile forces that forged a collection of
French académies, including the Académie d’Architecture. It also outlines how
the Académie came to hold sway over the guild system of architectural educa-
tion. The various residences of the Académie during its existence are explored,
particularly Le Vau’s plans for Mazarin’s College des Quatre-Nations drafted
in 1662, which refers to an ‘Académie for Architecture’. When the building was
completed, it did not initially house the Académie; however, the note on Le
Vau’s plan is the first known record of an institution dedicated to the study of
architecture as a distinct discipline. This chapter also discusses why the social
standing of the architect increased during the eighteenth century and how
during this time architecture came to be a more distinct profession.
Chapter 3, The Académie’s early ideology, starts with an overview of N.-F.
Blondel’s inaugural lecture at the Académie, which outlined its aspirations, the
programme of lectures and meetings that followed. Nicolas-François Blondel
steered the ideological course of the Académie and sought to uncover archi-
tectural precepts that defined ‘absolute Classicism’; his particular preoccupation
was with the Orders and their relationship with the entablature. However, an
exact definition of absolute and eternally valid architectural rules was never
satisfactorily grasped and that the primary topic of debate within the Académie
moved from, ‘good architecture is defined by its adherence to correct Classical
principles’, (a view that N.-F. Blondel referred to as ‘good taste’) to, ‘good
architecture is that which is suitable for the purpose it is designed to perform’,
(a view that emerged during the end of the seventeenth century). This chapter
also discusses the studies and the activities the Académie practised. It is shown
that Membres were not merely deliberators, but were well versed in practical
matters such as construction detailing, structures and legal arbitration. The
Membres, together with the administration and management systems placed
over them, are also discussed.
Chapter 4, The school at the Académie, examines the school of the Académie
under the leadership of N.-F. Blondel, and then how it was radically overhauled
by Jacques-François Blondel (probably no relation to Nicolas-François Blondel).
Under J.-F. Blondel’s professorship, the lecture room and atelier were united
and a demanding curriculum devised. The ideological stance of the Académie
was also altered to accept relative values that were dependent upon climate,
materials and other factors in line with Enlightenment thinking. The Acadé-
mie’s competitions, which were the most sought-after accolade in French
architectural education for over 250 years, are also examined.
Chapter 5, Philosophical and stylistic debate on architectural style, examines
the Académie’s preoccupation with Cartesian Rationalism. It is argued that
Descartes’ quest to explain epistemological truth is echoed in the Académie’s
pursuit to define a coherent set of architectural principles. This chapter also
 Introduction 5
shows how N.-F. Blondel’s rationalistic ideology is most apparent in his debates
with Claude Perrault (1613–1688); the two characters became the main propo-
nents of a philosophical debate known as the Querelle des Anciens et Moder-
nes. It is also argued that Perrault’s philosophical stance was ultimately
superior to that of Blondel on the matter of optical correctness. Perrault
believed that the human mind was able to correct optical perspective and no
‘improvements’ by the architect were necessary, whereas Blondel advocated that
the architect should counterbalance optical perception in his design, and that
this was best done by relying on his inner ‘genius’; however, Blondel was
unable to define what ‘genius’ is or how is it best practised.
Chapter 6, The professional expression of the Académie’s ideology, explores
the relationship between the Académie and the contemporaneous architectural
profession. No register of architects or any formal definition of a profession
existed in France until the nineteenth century. However, this chapter contends
that the French profession of architecture was effectively, though unin-
tentionally, conceived with the introduction of the Académie, and that whilst
the Académie never completely controlled the profession, it acted as its public
face. This chapter also examines the relationship between the Académie’s
ideology and French architecture of the time, together with the extent to which
the Académie affected the theory and form of contemporaneous architecture.
Against an overview of French eighteenth-century architecture is an examina-
tion of the built work undertaken by those who most affected the ideological
trajectory of the Académie; namely, the Professeurs. The chapter argues that
until the 1760s buildings produced by Membres of the Académie generally
adhered to the rationalist belief that beauty is afforded by the adherence to
certain rules and proportions. However, after the appointment of J.-F. Blondel,
the ideology of the Académie emphasised an acceptance of relative values;
beauty was replaced by the notion of utility and a desire to demonstrate struc-
tural logic grew in line with the emergence of French Neoclassicism during the
latter half of the eighteenth century. Lastly, this chapter explores the differences
between the Académie’s ideology and royal buildings; it demonstrates that not
only did Louis XIV ignore much of the aesthetic preferences of the Académie,
but often played the role of the designer himself.
Chapter 7, The suppression of the Académie, examines why and how the
Académie came to be abolished. It shows that the running of the school was
affected by a growing degree of student outrage towards its managerial staff
and how the role of Jacques-Louis David lies at the heart of the Académie’s
demise. The primary cause of David’s grievances towards the académies, parti-
cularly the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture, stemmed from the institu-
tion’s decision to close all exhibitions of art except for those organised by the
officers. David denounced this monopolistic stronghold as manifestly incompa-
tible with surrounding European art cultures. This chapter traces how David’s
initial passion for ridding the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture of despotic
officers ironically led to his ambition to overthrow the entire academic system;
6 Introduction
a quest that he successfully managed in a fashion that caused him to be known
as the ‘dictator of the arts’.
Chapter 8, The revival of the former Académie, follows the complicated path
of the school of the Académie after the Suppression until the formation of the
École des Beaux-Arts. Julien-David Leroy played a pivotal role in the con-
tinuation of the academic architectural tradition during the troubled times of
the Revolution, and the school that he led was officially acknowledged in part
because Leroy was sympathetic towards the cause of the revolutionaries; a
stance that brought him favour from David. This chapter also examines how
the accommodation of the École developed during the nineteenth century, and
how many of the functions traditionally undertaken by an architect during the
Ancien Régime diminished after the Suppression with the development of spe-
cialist engineering schools that were introduced to fill the academic void that
existed immediately after the Revolution.
Lastly, Chapter 9, The enduring influence of the academic tradition at the
École, explores the extent to which the activities and practices of the Académie
were transmitted to the École. The French architectural academic tradition
fundamentally changed very little from its inception in 1671 until the 1920s.
This continuity is perhaps most evident in the Grand Prix competitions, which
continued to be the most important measure of a student’s ability at both the
Académie and the École. The chapter finishes with the separation of archi-
tectural education from the École and the enduring influence of the academic
architectural education tradition in contemporary architectural schools.
It is perhaps surprising that the Académie has not received scholarly attention
in proportion to the important role it played in the history of architectural
education, especially given that the schools of architecture that evolved from it,
most notably the École des Beaux-Arts, have been so thoroughly researched and
critiqued.2 Of the sparse scholarly attention the Académie has managed to
amass, the vast majority is written in French, and either in a fragmentary form
that is peripheral to a broader story of architectural education, or in the context
of the École.3 The Procès-Verbaux de l’Académie Royale d’Architecture 1671–
1793 is the official record of the Académie. It was published from 1911 to 1929
in ten volumes, long after the events it records. It is wearisome to read, save for
the introduction by Lemonnier who presents an informative overview. Another
important source is N.-F. Blondel’s Cours d’Architecture: Enseigné dans l’Aca-
démie, was written with the intention of defining a coherent, comprehensive set
of architectural principles and comprises lectures that N.-F. Blondel gave at the
Académie. Some early twentieth-century research by French scholars and his-
torians provide valuable, if only partial, accounts of specific aspects of the
Académie. However, no one volume exists that is dedicated to the Académie
d’Architecture, its school, and its position in the broader realm of architectural
education.
In many respects the Académie d’Architecture lends itself to study; the dates
of its formation and closure are clearly defined, its contribution to the wider
realm of architectural education is considerable, and its history recounts a
 Introduction 7
critical period of time stretching from the point at which architectural educa-
tion became a distinct discipline to when it was almost entirely quashed during
the tyrannies of the French Revolution. This book, the first to capture the rise
of academic architectural education at the Académie d’Architecture, not only
sheds lights on a previously overlooked era of important architectural history,
but also provides a valuable context to current discussions in architectural
education.

Notes
1 In 1740, Jacques-François Blondel started an independent school called the École des
Arts, although it was not formally recognised until May 1943; J.-F. Blondel had also
been informally teaching architecture for fifteen years prior to the start of his
school.
2 Examples include: Bonnaire, Marcel (ed.), Procés-verbaux de l’Académie des
Beaux-Arts, Vols. 1–3, Paris, 1937; Chafee, Richard, ‘The Teaching of Archi-
tecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts’, The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-
Arts; The Museum of Modern Art, ed. Arthur Drexler, The MIT Press, Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1977, pp. 61–110; Egbert, Donald Drew, The Beaux-Arts Tradition
in French Architecture: Illustrated by the Grand Prix de Rome, (edited for pub-
lication by David Van Zanten), Princeton University Press, 1980; Middleton,
Robin (ed.), The Beaux-Arts: And Nineteenth-Century French Architecture,
Thames & Hudson, London, 1982; Van Zanten, David, ‘Félix Duban and the
Buildings of the École des Beaux-Arts, 1832–1840’, The Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians, Vol. 37, no. 3, 1978.
3 There are, of course, some articles and books that are important sources of
information concerning the Académie. Of particular note is E. Delaire’s, Les
Architects élèves de l’École des Beaux-Arts, Librairie de la construction moderne,
Paris, 1907. Likewise, an essay by Manique Mosser & Daniel Rabreau, ‘L’Acadé-
mie Royale et L’Enseignement de L’Architecture au XVIIIe Siècle’, Archives
d’Architecture Moderne, no. 25, 1983, gives a reliable overview of the Académie,
while David Lloyd Dowd’s, Pageant-Master of the Republic: Jacques Louis David
and the French Revolution, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1948, is an
excellent account of the plight of the French académies during the Revolution.
Other works by scholars that have proved to be insightful in the broader realm of
French academic education during the time of the Académie include: Blomfield,
Reginald, A History of French Architecture from the Reign of Charles VIII till the
Death of Mazarin 1494–1661, Vols. 1 & 2, Hacker Art Books, New York, 1973.
(First Pub. 1921); Blomfield, Reginald, A History of French Architecture from the
Death of Mazarin till the Death of Louis XV 1661–1774, Vols. 3 & 4, Hacker Art
Books, New York, 1973. (First Pub. 1921); Blunt, Anthony, Art & Architecture in
France 1500–1700, Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, 1953; Hautecoeur, Louis,
Histoire de l’Architecture Classique en France, 7 Vols. (Vols. 1i & 1ii, La forma-
tion de l’idéal classique, Pub. 1963 & 1965; Vols. 1iii* & 1iii**, L’architecture
sous Henri IV et Louis XIII, Pub. 1966 & 1967; Vol. 2, Le Règne de Louis XIV,
Pub. 1948; Vol. 3, Première Moitié du XVIIIe Siècle : Le Style Louis XV, Pub.
1950; Vol. 4, Seconde Moitié du XVIIIe Siècle le Style Louis XVI, 1750–1792, Pub.
1952;.Vol. 5, Révolution et Empire 1792–1815, Pub. 1953; Vol. 6, La Restauration
et le Gouvernement de Juillet, 1815–1848, Pub. 1955; Vol. 7, La Fin de L’archi-
tecture Classique, 1848–1900, Pub. 1957.) Paris, 1943–57; and Pevsner, Nikolaus,
The Academies of Art: Past and Present, Da Capo Press, New York, 1973.
1 The Origins of Academic Education

Plato and the first Academy

The etymological origin of the word Academy derives from the Greek word
Hekademeia (Ἑκαδημεια); it was the name of a region that was located two and
a half kilometres to the northwest of Athens.1 In ancient Greek mythology, the
legendary hero Hekademos (Ἑκάδημος)2 had been given the area as a reward
for revealing to the Diokouroi where Theseus had hidden Helen of Troy, and
later renamed the property Hekademeia in homage to himself.3 The area has
been used by religious cults dedicated to Hekademos dating back to the sixth
century B.C.4 The arid land was later developed by the statesman, Cimon
(c.510–450 B.C.), who constructed running tracks and shady walks, planted a
grove of olive trees and enclosed much of its precincts with a wall.5 The olive
trees, according to an Athenian fable, were reared from cuttings of the sacred
olive that Athena had ‘made grow’ in the Erechtheum, an ancient temple on the
north side of the Acropolis.6 They produced the oil given as a prize to victors at
Panathenaic festivals.7 Both the walled garden and the surrounding areas
became known as the Akademeia (the ‘He-’ became abbreviated to ‘A-’) and
they were adorned with a collection of temples, a gymnasium and a large
garden. It was in one corner of this garden that Plato (428–348 B.C.) gathered
his peers and pupils together to discuss various topical matters of the day. Plato
later acquired part of the garden and built a house and a chapel dedicated to the
muses.8 There is no historical record of the exact date the forum was officially
founded, but it was probably sometime after 387 B.C. Once the project gath-
ered momentum, the people of Athens regarded the forum for learning as
synonymous with the area, and it took on the name of the district.
With the community owning its own land and premises, Plato would have
been required to proffer a name for it. The legal requirement of the day was
that every thiasos, namely, a cult, organisation or association, would nominate
an ‘owner’ of any property or asset the thiasos might possess, and that the
owner would provide a formal title for the group. No records of the ancient
registry remain; thus, it is unknown whether Plato used the term Academy as
an official title for the thiasos. The Academy was also legally required to be
affiliated with a religious association. To suffice this requirement Plato chose to
 The origins of academic education 9
dedicate his society to the Muses, the patrons of education, not so much
because he believed that philosophy was the highest ‘art’, but because a
Museion, or a chapel of the Muses, was a regular feature of the schools of the
day.9 It is clear from the writing of Plato that the society was never intended to
be a religious sect. Instead, it was a collection of scholars, teachers and students
working together, dedicated to philosophical, mathematical and scientific study;
a set of interests that Plato started to develop during his privileged childhood.
Plato bore the name of his Grandfather, Aristocles, although it was super-
seded by his now familiar nickname, given by his gymnastic master on account
of his powerful build (Pláto-n, meaning ‘wide or broad-shouldered’). Plato was
born into an aristocratic family that was never far from politics. Plato’s
mother’s brother, Charmides, and her cousin, Critias, became notorious leaders
of a government known as the ‘Thirty Tyrants’. However, this party so mis-
used its power, that even the blindest eyes that despised the government it
overthrew were open to the perils of the political victors. After Plato’s father
died, his mother married Pyrilampes, a supporter of the Periclean democracy
that overthrew the Athenian government in 404 B.C. Plato grew up in a context
that assumed he would enter politics; however, he never joined a partisan group
having been repelled by the irresponsible and often violent actions of political
parties, including those of his own family. Considering the political turmoil
that surrounded Plato, the historian Eduard Zeller notes;

It is easy to see how a noble, high-minded youth, in the midst of such

experiences and influences, might be discouraged, not only with democracy,
but with existing state systems in general, and take refuge in political uto-
pias, which would further tend to draw off his mind from the actual
towards the ideal.10

Plato turned to pursue a deeper understanding of knowledge and virtue after

the newly empowered direct democracy accused Socrates, his mentor, of cor-
rupting the youth of Athens and sentenced him to death. Plato offered to pay a
fine to spare his friend’s life, but Socrates decided to go to his death willingly.
In Plato’s Republic, which explores whether it is always better to be just or
unjust, a character argues that people would all behave unjustly if they could
get away with it. To address this, Plato required Socrates to imagine what a
perfectly just city might look like and applies lessons from that to the individual
soul. If the soul is best ruled by reason, he argues, then the city would be best
ruled by philosophers. Plato’s stance on justice led him to believe that an edu-
cation worthy of an Athenian citizen was unfairly reserved for the influential
and affluent and was eager to address the imbalance.11 One example of this can
be seen by his inclusion of women within his own school:

And I say further, without hesitation, that the same education in riding and
gymnastic shall be given both to men and women. The ancient tradition
about the Amazons confirms my view, and at the present day there are
10 The origins of academic education
myriads of women, called Sauromatides, dwelling near the Pontus, who
practise the art of riding as well as archery and the use of arms. But if I am
right, nothing can be more foolish than our modern fashion of training men
and women differently, whereby the power of the city is reduced to a half.12

Plato wrote little on his Academy’s ideology and teaching practices, and only a
few notable ancient texts by others on the activities undertaken at the Academy
have been preserved, most of which were produced by Plato’s star student,
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.).13 Of the texts that Plato did write that relate to the
Academy, the most insightful is the dialogue, Seventh Letter. Here Plato notes
that he did not give formal lectures except for one he called ‘on the good’. The
dialogue outlines Plato’s emphatic belief that lectures ought never to be given,
that notes should never be taken because of their ill effects on the memory, and
that manuals of instruction should be treated with scepticism. Given this view,
it is likely that Plato intended to avoid recording matters discussed at the
Academy; thus, our understanding of its activities remains scant. It is known,
however, that Plato was the leader of the Academy until his death and that he
had appointed Speusippus (408–339 B.C.) to be his successor. Younger members
held minor offices such as gatekeeper for the temple (who was responsible for
the offering of sacrifices), secretary (who registered the members), and censor
(who kept order in the meetings and prepared the symposia). The symposia
were based on banquets and were regarded in the Academy as solemn festive
acts where animals were sacrificed. It appears that no fees were charged, at least
while Plato was in office, and that no staff or qualifications existed.
The Academy aimed to produce political experts who were guided by philo-
sophy. Plato’s primary aspiration was to train a chosen group of righteous men
(and possibly women) in the ways of the Academy to propagate justice in
society. To this end, Plato believed that ‘education should be exercised by all
people’, which most distinguishes the Academy from other contemporaneous
Greeks schools. In The Laws Plato notes:

It shall not be so, that teaching is only sought by those fathers who wish it,
yet is neglected by those whose fathers will not have them taught; but each
man and each boy shall so far as is possible submit to compulsory educa-
tion, for they belong more to the republic than to their parents.14

Additionally, whereas the Sicilian Pythagorean schools of the late sixth century
B.C. were closed societies of an exceptional character, the Academy covered a
range of subject matters and was mostly open to public debate.
On the activities of the Academy, Professor Mueller, an expert in ancient
Greek philosophy, cites Philodemus’s history of the Platonic school, written in
the first century B.C. on papyrus and in a damaged condition.

At that time, great progress was seen in mathematics, with Plato serving as
general director (architektonountos) and setting out problems, and the
 The origins of academic education 11
mathematician investigating them earnestly. In this way, the subject of
metrology (metrologia) and the problems concerning {…} then reached
their high point for the first time, as E[udo]{x}us and his followers trans-
formed the old-fashioned work (a{rch}aismon) o[f Hip]po[cra]tes. Geo-
metry, too, made great progress; for analysis and the {lemma} concerning
diorismoi were created, and in general the subject of geometry was
advanced greatly. And [op]t[io]s and mechanics were not at all ignored.15

The main subject of discussion at the Academy was mathematics, though the
reason for discussing this topic was not to produce specialists in mathematics,
but so that the students’ minds might be trained and prepared for dialectics. It
was dialectics that formed the basis of almost all the twenty-five dialogues that
Plato wrote, and which he claimed to be the highest form of educational activ-
ity.16 Thus, his achievement was primarily to challenge and inspire a systematic
argument rather than contribute any real advancement in mathematics. Plato’s
style of teaching at the Academy was more akin to that of a mentor than a
school principal. Harold Cherniss notes:

Plato’s role appears to have been not that of a “master” or even of a

seminar director distributing subjects for research reports or prize essays,
but that of an individual thinker whose insight and skill in the formulation
of a problem enables him to offer general advice and methodical criticism
to other individual thinkers who respect his wisdom and who may be
dominated by his personality but who consider themselves at least as
competent as they consider him in dealing with the details of specific
issues.17

Plato appears not to have been as interested in his own involvement in the
Academy as the activities and discussions that it pursued. He was not always
present at the Academy and embarked on numerous journeys that would have
taken many months to complete. During his travels, the Academy was run by
some of the students.
Since the fourteenth century Plato’s Academy has been revered as an intel-
lectual forum of distinguished scholars; however, it appears that at the time of
its existence it was regarded as a strange and even foolish club. Epicrates of
Ambracia, a contemporary of Plato, wrote a satirical comedy that included a
conversation between a few unnamed speakers:

What about Plato, Speusippus, and Menedemus? What subjects are they
dealing with now? What thought, what argument are they investigating? If
you’ve come knowing anything please tell these things to me with discre-
tion. I can talk about these things clearly. At the Panathenaic festival I saw
a band of gay youth in the gymnasium of the Academy and heard them say
utterly weird things. They were making distinctions concerning nature, the
life of animals, the nature of trees, and the genera of vegetables. Among
12 The origins of academic education
other things they were studying the genus of the pumpkin. How did they
define it? What is the genus of the plant? Reveal this to me if you know.
Well, first they stood silently, bent over, and they thought for a consider-
able time. Suddenly, while the young men still bent over and reflecting, one
of them pronounced it a round vegetable, another a grass, a third a tree. A
Sicilian doctor who heard these things blew a fart at the fools. That must
have made the students angry. I suppose they shouted out against the man’s
derision. For it is out of place to do such things during a discussion. It
didn’t bother them. Plato was there, and he enjoined them, very gently and
without agitation, to try again from the beginning to distinguish the genus
of the pumpkin. They proceeded to do so.18

During the Academy’s existence, most Greek citizens were unlikely to have
heard of Plato’s Academy at all. The Greek traveller and geographer Pausanias
wrote what might now be regarded as a tourist information guide on Athens in
the second century A.D. The text describes the graves of the Academy, the
altars and olive trees. Only towards the end does it mention a memorial to
Plato, but there is no mention of the forum.

In ancient Athens, the Academy was first and foremost a public park
dominated by its gymnasium, and the connection between it and Plato’s
school was only one of the numerous historical reminiscences in an area
rich in history.19

Indeed, until the mid-fifteenth century, only the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius
Cicero (106–43 B.C.) had cited the forum by using the term Academy. According to
the philosopher Pliny, Cicero used the term Academy to refer to his villa near
Puteoli.20 He used the term again as the title of his book, Academica in 45 B.C.,
which was an attempt to rework Hellenistic epistemological debates in Latin.21
The history of Plato’s Academy has been generally documented in chron-
ological eras relating to the philosophical bents of the succeeding leaders of the
school, or important figures who were associated with its legacy.22 The extent
and number of eras that categorise its history have changed in unison with
periods of renewed interest in the forum. Ancient Greek historiography tends to
distinguish between Old, Middle and New Academies. Essentially, these periods
cover one or more leaders of the school and articulate their philosophical pro-
pensities.23 As the history of the Academy was studied later, some authorities
such as the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero divided the history of the
Academy into the Old Academy, and the New Academy.24 Other authorities
took to dividing the history of the Academy into five periods: Old, Middle and
New, similar to that of the ancient Greeks, but also included Fourth and Fifth
periods.25 These covered certain philosophical threads that tie back to the
school after it was closed.26
After seventy years of uncertain progress under the leadership of Speusippus,
Arcesilaus (316–241 B.C.) reinvigorated the Academy to start the period known
 The origins of academic education 13
as the Middle Academy. This impetus was short-lived, and the Academy soon
dwindled again for a further eighty years. When at the end of the Hellenistic era
the growing Republic of Rome started to move against Greece, the Academy
had a final revival. Carneades of Cyrene (214–129 B.C.) became the director and
founded what is now known as the New Academy. However, as the school
passed through successive generations of leaders, the spirit of Plato faded.
The Academy enjoyed nine centuries of continuous operation before it was
closed by an imperial edict in 529 when Emperor Justinian I (c.482–565)
ordered the doors of all ‘pagan schools’ to be shut. It was closed during a time
when the Roman Empire was a collection of tribes that had been brought
together by Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.) and others in a gradual and
unplanned fashion. The collection of remnant nations was permitted to retain a
myriad of beliefs that formed the Roman Pantheon, although over all of them
was exerted the dominant rule of the Roman Emperor who demanded cultic
worship in addition to political submission.27

Ancient Greek tuition

The ancient Greek consciousness, that brought about an era of cultural civili-
sation and exquisite architecture, grew gradually and was not the result of any
single occasion or personality. During the sixth century B.C., the collection of
scattered Greek islands and city-based states, that were divided by mountains
and rivalry, started to focus on Athens as it emerged as the dominant cultural
and military epicentre, having overpowered the invading Persians. It was during
this Hellenic period that a new impetus for collective identity came to the sur-
face of Greek society, and with an integration of education and culture.28 The
Greeks held so highly the importance that an Athenian should contribute
towards their republican governance that the word for education, Paideia,
became synonymous with social identity.29 Through the Greek Paideia the
whole man was to be stretched, in body through gymnastics and sports, in art
through dance and singing, and in mind through elementary studies such as
reading, writing and arithmetic. The architecture that the Greeks created
embodied their social concern; constructional elements were primarily designed
to be enjoyed from the outside, as architecture was to benefit the whole of
society. Temples and other buildings that formed the agora were consciously
designed with the exterior in mind; architectural detailing was exposed for all
to see and not reserved for the elite few who entered the inner rooms. Rem-
nants of the Greeks’ architectural interpretation of Paideia are still evident at
the Acropolis, which is home to one of their most acclaimed achievements, the
Parthenon.30 At the Acropolis, Greek architects juxtaposed symmetrical build-
ings with seemingly arbitrary irregularity, partly in response to the topography
and the orientation of the sun, but also to enable the external viewer to
appreciate the architecture in perspective. Enforced movement around the site
spoke of Paideia notions of holistic engagement, an experience that would
otherwise have been lost if the citizen could view façades only face on. This
14 The origins of academic education
argument is given credence upon a realisation that the building hardly com-
prises a single straight line. Almost every surface contains a slight bulge or
curve to improve its optical beauty when seen in perspective.
With the new social consciousness came the first discernible impetus of
speculative thought that was separated from myth, which in turn led to a desire
to discuss their new interests in forums.31 One of the first forums to evolve in
Greece with this new outlook was the Milesian school, which emphasised
intellectual inquiry rather than physical condition.32 Its founding partners were
Thales (c.645–c.546 B.C.), two lesser-known contemporaries, Anaximander
(c.611–c.546 B.C.) and Anaximenes (c.585–c.528 B.C.), and Xenophanes (c.570–
475 B.C.), who all met at the Ionian city of Miletus. The group was merely a
forum with an agenda to survey their understanding of cosmology, the
arrangement of the inhabited world surrounded by heavenly bodies.33 They
concluded that climatic changes were due to rational patterns of temperature
change and environmental process, rather than being caused by the activities of
Olympian gods. It is not known what influence the group had on its con-
temporary social surroundings, although it was famous enough to entice
Pythagoras (c.570–495 B.C.) to emigrate from the nearby island of Samos to
Miletus. Pythagoras was drawn by the progressive strain of enquiry the school
practised, which led him to develop a distinction between matter and idea.34 He
amassed a considerable colony of disciples during his twenty-eight years at
Miletus, most of whom followed him on his return to Samos. The community
formed societies that adhered to strict codes of conduct to, as Pythagoras saw
it, refine the soul. In pursuit of a quiet retreat, he later left with a group of close
followers to Croton, Italy.
A rejection of mysticism did not initially follow the introduction of a pursuit
of rational intellect. The sects known as the ‘so-called Pythagoreans’ (Aristotle
coined the term), were on the one hand concerned with mathematics, while on
the other partook in mystical traditions. Pythagoras introduced a seemingly
random collection of rules, including: to abstain from beans, not to pick up
what has fallen, not to touch a white cockerel, not to stir the fire with iron and
not to look in a mirror beside a light. The sects lacked any known curriculum
and avoided teaching its wisdom. In fact, they differed from other ‘schools’ of
the time by being positively introverted.
As the Athenian notion of Paideia developed in fourth-century Athens, so a
tide of schools emerged.35 A hospital and medical school was attached to the
temple of Asclepius in Epidaurus, while Hippocrates (469–399 B.C.) founded
his own medical school on the island of Cos.36 Medicine and mathematics were
the two subjects that dominated the initial surge of specialist schools in Doric
and Ionian Greece, but these were closely followed by more amorphous schools
pioneered by the sophists who attempted to thrash out problems that accom-
panied the growing realm of knowledge with rhetorical methods. The sophists
emphasised linguistic skill over the more direct training of citizenship.
Athens did not share the Spartans’ desire for state schooling, though the state
did provide guidance for private schools, partly as a reaction to the growing
 The origins of academic education 15
influence of the sophist schools. The educational pattern of the non-specialist
schools of fourth-century Athens was generally a combination of gymnastics
and music, where music was regarded as any of the arts or sciences that came
under the patronage of the muses. The method of education typically found in
the emerging schools involved reciting what was regarded at the time as the
‘great poems’ and playing the music that accompanied them. The poems and
presentation techniques were chosen to create a sense of connection with cul-
ture and engender the Paideia experience. Education started for children of a
young age. From three to six years old children attended supervised play groups
and were encouraged to devise their own games. More formal schooling began
at six and was compulsory because parents, as Plutarch notes, ‘did not regard
sons as the peculiar property of their fathers, but rather as the common prop-
erty of the state’.37 Their teachers were imported foreigners paid by the state,
and while boys and girls had the same education, including physical and mili-
tary training,38 they were segregated in different schools.39 Plato’s The Laws
notes that their education was chiefly concerned with reading and writing:

For the study of letters, about three years is a reasonable period for a child
of ten years old; and for lyre-playing, he should begin at thirteen and con-
tinue at it for three years. And whether he likes or dislikes the study, nei-
ther the child nor his father shall be permitted either to cut short or to
prolong the years of study contrary to the law; … And, during these peri-
ods, what are the subjects which the children must learn and the teachers
teach – this you yourself must learn first. They must work at letters suffi-
ciently to be able to read and write. But superior speed or beauty of
handwriting need not be required in the case of those whose progress
within the appointed period is too slow. With regard to lessons in reading,
there are written compositions not set to music, whether in meter or
without rhythmical divisions – compositions merely uttered in prose, void
of rhythm and harmony…40

It was within this educational context that a school belonging to a philosophi-

cal rival to Plato was formed. Isocrates (436–338 B.C.)41 gave pupils of his
school a thorough preparation for the practical life of politics with the use of
rhetorical argument.42 Isocrates’s school was founded in 392 B.C., a few years
before the Academy. He stressed the importance of language to address prac-
tical problems in cases where absolute truth was not obtainable. His critics
accused him of corrupting youth by teaching them how to confound the evi-
dence and so order argument such that justice could be defeated, and the poorer
case was enabled to win. However, Isocrates proclaimed that rhetoric was an
art and should be taught as though it had the power to marshal military
opponents. His students would practise composing and giving speeches on a
variety of subjects, though the best students, Isocrates believed, were those who
had an inherent gift rather than those who adhered strictly to a set of oratory
rules. It appears that a curriculum was adhered to in the form of writing essays,
16 The origins of academic education
studying the art of rhetoric, making speeches, and literary criticisms. The aim
was to be responsive to any given situation, whether it be the courtroom, a
public eulogy, or a political discourse; however, in all instances, the student was
taught to separate the rhetoric into four constituent parts: proem, narrative,
proof and peroration. Isocrates’s school was much more successful than Plato’s
in that Isocrates educated numerous important Greek and Roman leaders, from
whom he demanded a standard tuition fee, which made him a wealthy
teacher.43
Another school of note that followed those of Isocrates and Plato was one
started by Plato’s most highly regarded pupil, Aristotle. Aristotle stayed at the
Academy for around seventeen years,44 and often taught on matters that were
at odds with the teachings of Plato.45 He later formed his own school, the
Lyceum, which took its name from a gymnasium in the eastern suburbs of
Athens that he bought in 115 B.C.46 Aristotle made little impression on his
contemporaries, mostly because after his death the Lyceum kept his works for
the sole use of its teachers. His teachings were first published, it seems, around
the time of Christ, and even then, were not studied widely. Though Aristotle
remained a character of importance during the Hellenistic era, the Lyceum
waned. Theophrastus, who directed the school after Aristotle, took Aristotle’s
manuscripts to Skepsis in Troas (the region of the historical Troy) so that
subsequent directors could not use them.
Aristotle’s school existed at a time when Greece was contending with a long
and complex catalogue of battles and skirmishes with a multitude of neigh-
bouring empires, districts, states and leagues. Upon Alexander the Great’s death
in 323 B.C., fractures between Athens and Macedon erupted, and a spate of
revolts marked the start of a series of struggles for power amongst Mediterra-
nean territories, which broke up Alexander’s state. During this time, Greek
territories joined the Aetolian League, which was nominally subject to the Pto-
lemies, and the coalition enabled the continuation of cultural unanimity and
political independence. In 267 B.C. Ptolemy persuaded the Greek cities to attack
Macedon once more, although the incursion proved unsuccessful and they were
defeated in what became known as the Chremonidean War, after which their
independence was removed. In 198 B.C., the growing army of Rome under the
leadership of Titus Quinctius Flaminius attacked and defeated Macedon. He
declared the Greek cities free in 196 B.C., although, in reality, he set about to
control by proxy. A series of spats led to a final battle at Corinth in 146 B.C.;
the Roman Republic destroyed the city and divided the region into smaller
republics. The battle marked the end of the Hellenistic era, and eventually,
Greek city-states relented to Roman rule.47
Although the establishment of Roman domination did not prevent the con-
tinuation of Greek society and cultural civilisation, which persisted until the
rise of Christianity during the Middle Ages, it did mark the end of Greece’s
political independence. However, while the Roman Empire conquered Athens,
Greek civilisation infiltrated Roman society. Upon acknowledging their lack of
civility, the Romans were content to entertain Greek art and architecture,
 The origins of academic education 17
allowing them to pursue practical matters concerning the law, engineering and
administering territories. While the Romans preserved many of the customs and
cultural activities of the nations they overthrew, they had little concern for their
philosophical idealism, and so began a process of keeping that which they valued,
and discarding the remainder. In education, the Romans maintained reading,
writing (including grammar, dialectics and rhetoric), and encouraged mathe-
matics and the sciences including astronomy, medicine and architecture. The arts,
such as sculpture, drawing and music, were regarded as frivolous activities and a
distraction to the more important concerns of the day. While Plato’s notion of
the ‘ideal’ became the touchstone of the Roman’s definition of beauty, their
appreciation of sculptural form and the arts generally was very notably absent
from discussions in education. Educated Greek teachers were enlisted as slaves to
teach the Greek language and cultural etiquette. Livius Andronicus had Homer
translated into Latin so that Roman students could benefit from its poetry, and it
was not uncommon for Roman aristocrats to travel to Athens, Alexandria and
Rhodes to study Greek rhetoric and philosophy.
It was the ambition of the Roman statesman to become skilled in public
speaking so that he might be of practical service to the state. However, as
Roman military dominance started to wane during the fourth century, so Greek
ideals and education started to fall out of fashion. The city of Rome was
abandoned by Emperor Honorius as the capital of the Roman Empire in 402 A.
D. after repeated invasions and ransacking by the Visigoths and Vandals.48 The
date marks for many scholars the end of the reign of the Roman Empire and
the start of the Middle Ages.

The medieval university and guild systems

By the time that the Roman Empire had dissolved into numerous strands across
Europe, the mysticism that had inspired ancient Greece had mostly evaporated.
With the spread of Christianity, increasingly people turned to the worship of
God, some through genuine commitment and others who saw the Christian
Church as merely the next governing power. It was during the thousand years
after the fall of the Roman Empire that the church became the sole interna-
tional organisation in the Western world. Consequentially, as early as the
fourth century, new schools emerged that sought to explore and further the
Christian faith. By the sixth century, the Academy that Plato once led was the
only non-Christian school of any significance. While the Church actively sought
to propagate the Christian faith, many early Christian theologians and philo-
sophers, including Augustine of Hippo (354–430), were familiar with Greco-
Roman ideologies and philosophies, including those of Plato and Aristotle.
Furthermore, the doctrines of their philosophical predecessors were often seen
to accord with biblical scripture, and Augustine is often referred to as a Chris-
tian Neoplatonist. That the church despised Greco-Roman learning is perhaps
one of the greatest misunderstandings of modern literature’s account of history.
The derogatory term, Dark Ages, and its associated assumption that the
18 The origins of academic education
thinking person of the Middles Ages was devoid of scholastic understanding is
both wrong and in need of widespread realignment. Key to the medieval con-
science was the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The function of the Church was to
teach this gospel such that people might immediately apprehend an eternal
relationship with God by grace through faith. To this end, the purpose of the
feudal system was to defend the land against spoilers so that both serfs and
nobles could work out their destiny to enter a new kingdom reign, which in
inaugural eschatological terms, has come and is coming.
During the early Middles Ages, the only schools available were those asso-
ciated with the Church. The oldest of these were schools connected to mon-
asteries and abbeys. The primary concern of these schools was the spiritual
edification of the pupil, although non-religious subjects were also covered to
provide a rounded education. There were two kinds of ‘religious’ schools: the
monastic school proper, schola claustri, which admitted only future monks, and
the schola canonical, to educate priests who did not want to remain within the
monastery. By the sixth century, the education of the secular clergy was taken
over by the cathedral schools, which were attached to every Bishop’s residence.
These effectively served as quasi-monastic institutions for the clergy attached to
a bishopric. Around the same time, chapter schools emerged and were asso-
ciated with larger parish churches. Finally, the more modest pupil was educated
at parochial schools or parish schools. These schools aimed to train choirs and
acolytes for the parish priests, while also spreading the rudiments of the
Christian faith to its parishioners. Whilst initially the schools associated with
the Church prospered, with the gradual demographic emigration from rural
villages to cities, the revival of trade industries, and a general renewed interest
in learning during the eleventh century, it became increasingly difficult for them
to sustain an education programme for much-needed lawyers, doctors, secre-
taries and other non-religious professions. To fill the intellectual gap, two
additional educational systems emerged that had an unparalleled effect on the
future of education: the universities and the guilds.
The universities materialised during the latter half of the twelfth century.49
The first use of the term Universitas is recorded at a meeting of student unions
and teachers of the Roman civil law in Bologna held in April 1215.50 It was
written in Buoncompagni’s book, Rhetorica Antique, which was read out loud
to the gathering, (‘coram universitate professorum juris canonici et civils et
aliorum doctrum scholarium multitudine numerosa’). However, the reference
was little more than a technical term that acknowledged the existence of cor-
porations of teachers and students. Rather than a universal institution that
deals with all branches of knowledge, the medieval understanding of University
was essentially ‘a number of people’.51 The term was originally never used in its
absolute form, but preceded the group to which it referred, such as, ‘university
of scholars’. Conversely, the term Studium (or more commonly, Studia Gen-
erale) was used to denote the town or institutional building that later came to
house the universities of people.52 By the fifteenth century, the connections
 The origins of academic education 19
between Universitas and Studium were so intrinsic that the two became synon-
ymous, with Universitas being the dominant entitlement.
The universities gave rise to a fundamental shift in medieval education by
providing a new class of man, the scholar. The scholar was one who studied
specialised faculties, most notably, theology, medicine or law. These faculties
enjoyed the protection of popes and state rulers in addition to the right to teach
and examine. They also evidentially reflected the worldview of the time:

The Universities and the immediate products of their activity may be said
to constitute the great achievement of the Middle Ages in the intellectual
sphere. Their organisation and their traditions, their studies and their
exercises affected the progress and intellectual development of Europe more
powerfully, or (perhaps it should be said) more exclusively, than any
schools and in all likelihood will ever do again. A complete history of the
Universities of the Middle Ages would in fact be a history of medieval
thought – of the fortunes, during four centuries, of literary culture, of the
whole of the Scholastic Philosophy and Scholastic Theology, of the revived
study of the Civil Law, of the formation and development of the Canon
Law, and of the faint murky, cloud-wrapped dawn of modern Mathe-
matics, modern Science, and modern medicine.53

Those who attended the first universities, such as Bologna and Paris, were
graced with rapid social ascension. Rashdall argues that Bologna and Paris were
the parents of all universities and are generally mirrored by their sibling insti-
tutions. The Parisian university was arguably the most famous. The institution,
which was founded at the beginning of the thirteenth century, became the seat
of the famous cathedral school of Notre Dame and the monastery schools of
Sainte Geneviève, Saint Victor and Saint Denis. As the popularity of the early
church-based universities grew during the latter half of the thirteenth century,
so leaders of France and Italy started their own studia as a means to exercise
power. To afford these studia the same prestige and recognition that was
enjoyed by the religious universities of Bologna and Paris, a Bull was issued
which, ‘declared that anyone admitted to the Mastership in that University
should be freely allowed to teach in all other studia without any further exam-
ination’.54 The Bull, by implication, introduced a rank among the universities,
which eventually resulted in Bologna and Paris introducing their own Bulls as a
mark of their significant educational standing. A few other older universities,
such as Oxford, refrained from introducing Bulls, yet were deemed worthy of
proper honour in title and so were named Studia Generalia ex consuetudine,
(university by custom). The outcome of this ranking system of employing the
Bulls effectively defined the university.

In the main, the term [University] seems to have implied three characteristics,
(1) That the School attracted or at least invited students from all parts, not
merely those of a particular country or district, (2) That it was a place of
20 The origins of academic education
higher education; that is to say, that one at least of the higher Faculties –
Theology, Law, Medicine – was taught there, (3) That such subjects were
taught by a considerable number – at least by a plurality – of Masters.55

However, the clarity of entitlement was short-lived as quibbles between fac-

tions of the church gave rise to questions over the authority of those who
claimed to issue Bulls. Furthermore, the authority claimed by Papal or Imperial
powers was not always recognised between nations.

At Paris, even Oxford degrees failed to command incorporation without

fresh examination and license, and Oxford repaid the compliment by
refusing admission to Parisian Doctors, the Papal Bull notwithstanding.56

Very quickly the university established a structured and formal teaching

arrangement that inducted the student into an established tradition. The early
universities were not concerned with developing new advances to a body of
knowledge; instead, they continued the teaching system of the monastic order
by feeding the student with pre-established divine truths. At the Université de
Paris during the thirteenth century, the institution comprised three higher
faculties (Theology, Law and Medicine), each faculty being led by a Dean. It
also included four artes faculties (comprising studies relating to the Gallican,
English, Picardian and Norman nations) each faculty being led by a Proctor.
The central leadership body consisted of all the Deans, Proctors and a Rector
Universitatis. They adhered to a complicated and democratic process that
ensured appropriate standards and that examinations were set to warrant
Bachelor certificates, attained after four to five years of study under a Master.
Likewise, Master or Doctor certificates were attained after further years of
study. On completion of the Master’s certificate, the university would welcome
the graduate as a teacher of the official doctrines himself.
Paralleling the emergence of the university was a collection of organisations
that assumed connections with trade, commerce and crafts known as the guilds.
The guilds were initially formed as voluntary organisations at the turn of the
millennium and were called Collegia. They were primarily religious or fraternal
groups responsible for providing menial services. Members would generally
worship together and offer financial support and security to each other. Their
existence started to decline during the fourth century significantly and only
really remained within the church. During the eleventh century, the necessity to
transport armies of Crusaders resulted in seaport cities, which quickly doubled
up as centres of trade and banking, thus producing a demand for merchants and
craftsman. In response, the burghers, an ethnic group of people who became
prolific merchant capitalists, effectively restructured the guilds and divided them
into two orders: firstly, the merchant guilds and later, the craft guilds, or mys-
teries. Members of the merchant guilds usually held a monopoly of the retail
trade in their hometown and exercised the privilege of taxing outsiders who
brought in goods for sale. Their authority was generally issued by local or
 The origins of academic education 21
national authorities as it was in their commercial interest to establish high-
quality local trade and manufacturing in their region. Closely associated with
these were the craft guilds, an order comprising associations of manufacturers,
artisans and skilled workers such as weavers, dyers and goldsmiths. In both
instances, the members of guilds all resided in the same town, and by doing so,
they acted in a contrary way to the early universities, which drew people from
various places. The guilds were very territorial and were established wherever
the commercial demand warranted them; thus, they were as common in rural
villages as in the urban trade centres.
From the very inception of the guilds, members retained their religious asso-
ciations with the church. For example, the masons, who were responsible for
the construction of the cathedrals, used their craft lodges, built alongside the
cathedrals, as meeting places where they conducted the religious and fraternal
rites of their society. However, to ensure a continual demand for the select
members, the skills and techniques of the masonic guilds became closely guar-
ded secrets, and the group developed mysterious and secretive practices to pro-
tect the knowledge of their trade and therefore their monopoly of it. One
consequence of the secrecy that enveloped many of the guilds is that little is
known of the specific subject matter that was taught within their confines.
Some guilds formed administrative systems and rules to protect their workers in
addition to establishing a design aptitude, which developed to sustain a high
level of craftsmanship and regional reputation. Other functions of the guilds
served to share commissions among their constituent members more fairly, and
often they would represent their members in legal disputes and give assistance
to the family of a member in times of sickness and need.
To provide a distinguishable and skilled body of craft, it was deemed essen-
tial to form a training system to teach the arts and crafts they were expected to
know; for this, the guilds used an apprenticeship system of teaching. The long
and challenging training procedure, together with the possible high costs, were
the primary methods by which the guilds restricted the number of successful
masters. Thus, the guilds effectively came to provide a source of income to the
wealthier end of society while preventing those with smaller means ever start-
ing. To this end, the guilds performed their most indispensable role, which
thereafter dominated their practices and entry into the sect. The guilds drew up
a set of rules to control labour supply by restricting the number of students
who could be taught, limiting the number of teachers, and ensuring that only
masters took on apprentices. The rules effectively served the guilds in two ways;
firstly, they represented the trade secrets that were vehemently preserved. Sec-
ondly, they forbad the apprentice to sell any works he had undertaken to reg-
ulate the amount and quality of ‘masterpieces’; thus, the scene was set to
demand a high price for commodities. The apprenticeship system offered the
new social class a practical education. Members of the guild would normally be
part of one of three classes: masters, journeyman or apprentice. The master
alone carried the authority to purchase raw materials for the guild, sell manu-
factured articles, and own shops or workshops. The powers awarded to a
22 The origins of academic education
master were accompanied by the responsibility to ensure that the merchandise
produced at the guilds was of sufficiently high quality to maintain its reputa-
tion, without which it could suffer aggressive take-overs. In an endeavour to
achieve this high rank, a boy would enter the guild as an apprentice, generally
at the age of thirteen. The apprentice was taught by observing a master
demonstrate his skill, attempting to emulate that skill, and then being corrected
where necessary.57 This process would normally last at least six to seven years
before the apprentice embarked upon an official test. During these formative
years, the apprentice agreed to serve the master for the duration of his training
in return for board and lodging.58 On successful completion of the test, he
stepped up to the level of journeyman. This elevation not only bestowed pres-
tige, but the promotion was generally accompanied by a wage along with board
and lodging. Furthermore, the journeyman was not obliged to serve a single
master, but could serve another or even several. The last hurdle in this voca-
tional training process was to produce a masterpiece, thus demonstrating wor-
thiness for the position of master. Accreditation to the master class was seen as
equal in status to that of a university Master’s degree.59
Until the end of the first millennium, the guilds’ primary artistic endeavour
was never to create novel and individualistic works of art, but to ensure a high
level of quality output. The apprenticeship training system of example, imita-
tion and practice, comfortably lent itself to the mentality of the early Middle
Ages. The preordained dogma that was taught related well to the accepted
traditions of many trades, none more so than architecture. In the masonic
guilds of the eleventh century, members would learn to draw plans, elevations,
geometrical proportions and acquire knowledge of construction. The emphasis
was placed on workability, which exuded the inherent beauty of the building
rather than entertaining the individual’s creative perception. Books containing
accepted patterns and methods were a closely guarded. Over the course of
generations, eminent masters would contribute to these standards by adding
their own findings and wisdom gained through experience such that archi-
tectural style and construction methods could evolve.

The resurgence of the Academy during the Renaissance

At the end of the twelfth century, Italy was in the throes of a social transfor-
mation. The Italian peninsula was the scene of a sudden expansion in banking,
trade and the textile industry. The rapid change of the nation’s economy
brought with it the reconstruction of great cities, the start of a genuinely
bourgeois culture and the premonitory signs of the break-up of feudal society.
To prosper in this thriving mercantile society, which was fundamentally an
urban world, quite unlike much of the rest of Europe, certain very particular
skills were required. Numeracy was a vital quality that became highly esteemed,
as was literacy and various associated abilities including a mastery of Latin.
The emergence of high society was paralleled with a revived interest in secu-
larism and pagan tendencies among some groups of artists and writers.
 The origins of academic education 23
By the fourteenth century, a new educational approach had been formulated
to respond to the needs and desires of those living in the emerging Renaissance
society. The approach, which was called the studia humanatatis by its teachers,
emphasised the importance of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and moral
philosophy. The teachers were in turn nicknamed by their students humanisti,
or humanists. The humanists had a romantic recollection of ancient civilisation
and believed it to be far superior to what they saw as the debased medieval
culture, which they believed had dulled their sensitivities and threatened to
render them incapable of seeing ‘truth’. They started to foster Greek scholars
who flocked to Italy, especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and
became very conscious of their ancestral relationship with ancient Rome.
However, perhaps the most significant contributions the humanists made to
education was firstly, the concept that education was inherently valuable for
everyone and not limited to the social elite, and secondly, that aesthetics should
be taught; a notion that was not overly stressed in the Middle Ages.
This ‘rebirth’ of the ancient Classical world was followed by an emphatic
return to the two essential characteristics of Greek thought; a preoccupation
with the secular rather than the divine, and a self-conscious awareness of the
individual and his powers. As the interest in Platonic writing grew, and texts
were translated into Latin, so his Academy became a natural source of inspira-
tion for humanist education. It would be prudent to note that the humanists
used the term Academy (sodalitates, stadia, gymnasia, coetus litteratorum) in
referring to a myriad of ideas, institutions, titles and places; therefore, the
Academy was an imprecise and unstable, especially during the fifteenth century.
The historian James Hankins explains,

… it was used for humanist schools, such as those of Guarino Veronese

and Gasparino Barzizza, as a word roughly equivalent to gymnasium. It
was also widely used by humanists as a classicizing equivalent to studium
or university, and in this sense was used to denote the universities of
Bologna, Florence, Padua, Rome and others. It was also used, in a way
clearly modelled on Cicero, to describe rooms in houses devoted to study
and discussion, often containing books and portrait busts of ancient wri-
ters. Ficino used the word idiosyncratically as roughly equivalent to libri
platonici, a highly metaphorical use that has led to much confusion in the
secondary literature. It was also used to refer to the philosophical tradition
of the ancient Academy in Athens, both in its skeptical and in its dogma-
tically Platonic phases. Finally, the word is used to describe associations of
literary men, sodalitia, usually gathered around some charismatic or pow-
erful individual who inspires or sponsors the literary activities of the group.
It is often hard to say just how coherent and permanent such groups are,
and it is sometimes the case that we are dealing with little more than an
off-hand compliment, as when a monastery frequented by Lorenzo de’Me-
dici and Pico is referred to as ‘a(n) academy of the Christian faith’.60
24 The origins of academic education
In Academies of Arts, Pevsner notes that the first reference to Academy during
Italian Renaissance was in 1427 when, according to the Quattrocento documents,
Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) called his cottage Academiam meam Valdarni-
nam.61 It was here that Bracciolini planned the establishment of an academy for
the reading of original classic texts in a learned circle. In 1452, young humanists
assembled in the house of the Florentine statesman, Alamanno Rinuccini (1426–
1499), to form the Nova Academia and dedicated themselves primarily to the
reading of Plato and Aristotle according to specific dialectic rules.
Closely following in the Nova Academia’s footsteps and much more influen-
tial (or at least more widely documented), is the group assembled by Marsilio
Ficino (1433–1499), commonly referred to as Accademia Platonica or the Pla-
tonic Academy of Florence, founded in 1462. The group began when Cosimo
de’ Medici (1389–1464) gave Ficino, the son of his physician, Greek texts by
Plato and the annual proceeds from a farm near the Medici villa at Careggi.
The farm villa became the location for the gathering, whereupon Ficino named
it the Academiam, quam nobis in agro caragio parasti. 62 Ficino set out to
translate the dialogues into Latin for the first time and gave lectures and com-
mentaries on the subject matter. Others interested in the studies gathered to
form the new club. The explicit aim of the Accademia Platonica was to ‘resur-
rect the ancient Academy’.63 It paid homage by decorating its walls with
maxims and allegedly an ancient bust of Plato was set up. Though lacking any
organisational framework, it proved influential beyond Florence, inspiring the
foundation of the Accademia Pontaniana in Naples in 1458.64 Additionally, in
1464, Pomponio Leto called into being the Accademia Romana (also called
Accademia Pomoniana after its founder) on the Roman Quirinal.
During the second half of the fifteenth century, titles derived from the term
Academy were not only used to refer to a place and a group of people, but also
individuals. At the Accademia Platonica, Ficino’s friends came to be known as
Academici, while Ficino himself became Academiae Princeps. Pevsner notes
that, ‘the word was also occasionally used for the learned friends of Alberto Pio
da Carpi, of Niccolò Priuli at Murano, of Trissino at the port at his villa near
Vicenza, of the condottiere Bartolommeo Liviano at Pordeneone, of Isabella
d’Este at Mantova, and of Veronica Gambara the Duchess of Correggio’.65
During the last quarter of the fifteenth century, the term Academy became
popular to the point of being fashionable and was applied to a multitude of
associations whose members simply wanted to appear well educated or expertly
skilled. It is during this time that the modern understanding of Academy flour-
ished and it became associated with intellectual brilliance. In particular, mem-
bers of the Nova Academia and the Accademia Platonica played an important
role in the initial translation of Platonic texts and were instrumental in elevat-
ing Plato and his Academy to a level of heroic fame. By the end of the fifteenth
century, Plato’s Academy was revered as one of the most significant educational
and learned institutions ever to have existed.
Whilst the term Academy alluded a clear definition during the fifteenth cen-
tury, there is a broad agreement that the activities and structures that are
 The origins of academic education 25
evident in modern academies, which emerged during the seventeenth century,
stem from a precise educational programme first devised by Leonardo da Vinci
(1452–1519).66 Leonardo’s contemporaries so admired him for his superlative
skills and as an intellectual genius that he could occupy a position of respect in
the courts of princes and popes whilst remaining independent of the guilds. Once
artistry was accepted in this light the position of guild master was under threat as
it was proven that a person’s inherent abilities could acquire art. Furthermore,
the masters were limited to the task of transmitting their knowledge to another;
they were not considered qualified to nurture another’s genius. Leonardo ques-
tioned the adequacy of an art education supervised exclusively by the guilds, though
he accepted that practical training was necessary to the teaching of craftsmanship.
Consequently, he called for an educational approach more in keeping with the
notion of genius.Leonardo believed that if good work in a given field depended
upon knowledge of that field’s basic principles, then the young had to be initiated
into those principles before all else. Although Leonardo devised a treatise on art
instruction, which became the central core of academic practice in later genera-
tions, he died before the programme could be carried out. The aim of Leonardo’s
educational treatise is evidently theoretical. Art was to be sundered from handi-
craft; the painter was to be taught knowledge more than skill. Whereas the
apprentice in the guild learned everything in the workshop and had little training in
theory, Leonardo would have the young artist taken out of the workshop alto-
gether and steeped in classical principles. Perspective was the first subject to be
taught. After this, the student was introduced to the theory and practice of pro-
portion and then to copying his master’s drawings until such a time as he could
practise his own art. His conception marks the earliest known connection between
art as a strict discipline and formal teaching.
The Renaissance art historian and architect, Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) saw
advantages (mostly political rather than academic or artistic) in Leonardo’s
academic system and in 1563 convinced Cosimo de’ Medici to found the Acca-
demia del Disegno, the first ‘officially regulated teaching institution’ whose titles
refers to the term Academy. 67 The Accademia was an art school that focused
on techniques of drawing, painting and sculpture and it employed Leonardo’s
idea of separating practice from theory; thus it mingled guild-like workshop
training with theoretical training. At the Accademia, students worked in the
shops of the Masters, but additionally, three visitors elected by the academy
regularly criticised their work according to agreed principles. The academy
offered supplementary courses on theoretical subjects that equipped students
with technical knowledge such as geometry, anatomy and perspective.68
When the first Renaissance art academies were formed, they lacked formality
and remained very distant from the highly-organised guild structures. Without a
teaching programme or any cogent administrative system, the early Renaissance
academies offered little competition to the medieval guilds. However, following
the Mannerist rise in the 1530s and 1540s, the relaxed academic circles gradu-
ally grew into strictly organised and regulated enterprises whose interests in free
debate gave way to a desire to establish timeless bodies of knowledge about
26 The origins of academic education
their respective academic fields. Once the academies established a structured
educational approach to accompany their distinct interest in the notion of
genius, they came into direct and acrimonious conflict with the guilds over the
right to educate, and the method by which the young should be educated. Not
content with censuring their opponents, the Mannerists condemned the entire
system of medieval philosophy and included in their criticism the work of the
medieval philosophers and artists. Ironically, Renaissance thinkers defamed one
historical genre, which they considered to be outdated, only to extol the bril-
liance of an even older epoch.
The guilds provided for the medieval craftsman an educational system that
inducted the young aspirant into the pre-established secrets of an art or craft.
The intention was not to reason why art and crafts are undertaken in the way
they are or to invent alternative ways of doing things, but to assimilate existing
bodies of knowledge and skill. The Renaissance preoccupation with universals
could not tolerate this kind of education. The self-conscious awareness of con-
sciousness itself meant that the individual could no longer rely upon a pre-
ordained dogma for knowledge of the world. In contrast to the guild appren-
ticeship system that prescribed how a craft should be practised, the humanist
attitude started to question why it is done that way. Where the Master of a
guild relied on the skill associated with particular craftsmanship, yet remained
relatively ignorant of its underlying principles, the new system championed a
teacher who understood the craft’s underlying principles, even to the detriment
of practical skill. The Renaissance artist increasingly distinguished practical
craftsmanship from theory, stressing the value of the latter. With the re-birth of
classical antiquity, the humanists dismissed medieval explanations of reality in
favour of understanding everything based on their own observations and
powers of reason, while at the same time axiomatically accepting ancient doc-
trines as truths more accurate or worthier than those they could discover. They
overthrew one cultural tradition because it denied them personal access to
knowledge about the world, only to replace it with another, older tradition,
that ultimately had the same effect.
During the seventeenth century, France prospered financially, stormed ahead in
the race for cultural superiority; it took ‘the lead in most fields of European
civilisation and began to outflank Italy in literature as well as in architecture and
painting’.69 The transition was slow and indistinct.70 It was during this time that
France displayed astonishing military and diplomatic strength as the leading
continental power. By the latter half of the century, Italian painters were travel-
ling to Paris to admire great works. During the Seven Years’ War (1754 & 1756–
1763) France kept its sabbaticals in Italy at a time when interest in Greek and
Roman antiquity exploded. The French architecture that followed in the peace of
1763 was inspired by a desire to build grand classical monuments in honour of
Louis XIV. For a further eleven years, Louis XV (1710–1774) saw art and archi-
tecture reflect the nation’s wealth and prosperity until his death in 1774.
As the epicentre of European culture shifted from Italy to France, so the first
academy was established on French soil in 1635. Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683),
 The origins of academic education 27
the king’s chief minister, was quick to recognise that the academy’s reputation could
be easily harnessed and used as a propaganda medium in promoting the idea of regal
glory and the ensuing commercial rewards that it brought. Thus, during the fol-
lowing thirty-five years Louis XIV, with the assistance of his chief minister, insti-
gated six academies from 1661 to 1671 to address specific disciplines such as the arts,
science and humanities. The last to be formed was the Académie d’Architecture.

Notes
1 The area lies beneath the current city. The precise boundary of the area is uncertain;
however, a chance discovery in 1966 revealed a small section of wall on which was
inscribed, ‘boundary of the Hekademia’.
2 There are several variants of the name: Greek – Akademos, Ekademos; Latin –
Hecademos, Academus, Ecademos; and Echedemos (perhaps the oldest form).
3 Plutarch, Life of Theseus, 31:1–32:4, see particularly, 32:3.
4 Athletes would run at night from one of three altars within the city to the Prome-
neikos altar, which was situated in the Hekademeia. Funeral games also took place
in the area, as did a Dionysiac procession. See, Plutarch, Life of Cimon, 13:7–8.
5 Cimon was a descendant of a wealthy family and used his finances and influence to
greatly improve Athens. The Oath of Plataea precluded any alterations or improve-
ments to temples; therefore, Cimon set out to improve the city’s infrastructure,
including public spaces which were supplied with water via a huge pipe made from
terracotta sections connected with collars. Plutarch notes that Cimon, ‘was the first
to beautify the city … by planting the market-place with plane trees, and by con-
verting the Academy from a waterless and arid spot into a well-watered grove’.
Plutarch, Life of Cimon, 13:8.
6 Plutarch, Life of Theseus, 18:1.
7 A more modern tale notes that the olive tree Plato purportedly favoured talking
under eventually met its demise when it was hit by a bus in 1976. The tree trunk,
which had been severed from its base, was taken to the Geoponic University of
Athens; the remainder of the base and roots of the tree were reportedly stolen by
residents and used for firewood.
8 The Muses are the Greek goddesses who preside over the arts and sciences and
inspire those who excel at these pursuits. Ancient thought claimed that the Muses
were daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne (memory); thus, their
name means ‘memory’ or ‘a reminder’.
9 Guthrie argues that Phaedo gives the ‘true explanation’ of Plato’s choice of the
Muses. Guthrie, W. K., A History of Greek Philosophy: The Later Plato and the
Academy, Vol. 5, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975, p. 20.
10 Zeller, Eduard, Plato and the Older Academy, trans. Sarah Frances Alleyne and
Alfred Goodwin, Longmans Green and Co, New York, 1888, p. 7.
11 Plato, The Laws, trans. Trevor Saunders, Penguin Classics, London, 2005, part 804d.
12 Ibid., 804d–805.
13 Aristotle was the last and the most influential of the great Greek philosophers. (See
particularly Andronicus, ‘Metaphysics 1.6’.) After visiting Athens as a teenager, he
stayed for twenty years in the Academy and began to challenge Plato’s idealism,
specifically his empirical approach to the study of nature. After Plato’s death, Aris-
totle tutored Alexander the Great for three years and then returned to Athens to set
up his own school of philosophy in the Lyceum. He left many writings, most of them
were closely argued treatises and devoid of entertainment. Consequently, he later
held a reputation (at least amongst Renaissance thinkers) as the ‘boring professor’.
14 Plato, The Laws, VIII, 804d.
28 The origins of academic education
15 Mueller cites Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, IV.2; Olympiodorus,
Commentary on the First Alcibiades, 140.16–17 Creutzer; and Olmpiodorus, Anon-
ymous Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Plato, 5.24–27 Westerink. Mueller, Ian, and
Kraut, Richard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 172–3. Letters enclosed in square brackets ([]) corre-
spond to gaps in the papyrus, and letters written within curved brackets ({}) to let-
ters that cannot be read with certainty.
16 Plato, The Republic, trans., H. D. P. Lee, Penguin Classics, London, 2007, 534e.
17 Cherniss, Harold, The Riddle of the Early Academy, Russell and Russell Inc., New
York, 1962, p. 65.
18 Quotation cited from Theodorus Kock (ed.), Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, 3
Vols. Leipzig, 1880–8, 2:287–8, by Mueller & Kraut, The Cambridge Companion to
Plato, pp. 171–2.
19 The writings of Pausanias are recorded by Glucker, J., Antiochus and the Late
Academy, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1978, p. 87.
20 Reid, James, The Academica of Cicero, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Academica, The
Project Gutenberg Ebook of Academica, Macmillan and Co. London, 1874, p. XLIII.
21 Cicero’s aim was to extend the education of his Latin countrymen to include the
professed knowledge of the Academic and Peripatetic masters; thus, the Academica
was intended to be a philosophical encyclopaedia. Though he never claimed to con-
tribute original criticism, he did assert to present the matter in his own style.
22 The leaders of the academy are as follows (dates refer to duration of leadership):
Plato c.428–348 B.C., Speusippus, (Plato’s nephew) 347–339 B.C., Xenocrates (who
once went with Plato to Sicily) 339–314 B.C., Polemon 314 to 269 B.C., Crates of
Athens 269–266 B.C., Arcesilaus (known for emphasising academic scepticism) 266–
241 B.C., Lacydes 241–215 B.C., Evander and Telecles (joint leadership) 215–165 B.
C., Hegesinus c.165–c.160 B.C., Carneades 160–129 B.C., Clitomachus 129–c.110 B.
C., Philo (most scholars agree Philo was the last Scholarch) c.110–84 B.C.
23 The Old Academy consists of Scholarchs who followed Plato’s doctrines without
digression and spans Plato to Crates. The Middle Academy consists of Scholarchs
who embraced Plato’s doctrines in the main, but also veered into foreign territories;
it spans from Arcesiliaus to Hegesinus. The New Academy returned more rigorously
to Plato’s doctrines after Arcesiliaus’ tangential ideologies; it spans from Carneades
to Philo.
24 Cicero traces the Academy back earlier than Plato. In the Old, Academy Cicero lists
the Scholarchs: Democritus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Parmenides, Xenophanes,
Socrates, Plato, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemon, Crates, and Crantor (not men-
tioned in the three-stage system). In the New Academy, the Scholarchs are: Arcesi-
laus, Lacydes, Evander, Hegesinus, Carneades, Clitomachus and Philo.
25 The leading proponent of the five-staged Academy was Sextus Empiricus.
26 Old, as before; Middle, focusing on Arcesilaus of Pitane, who became the leader of
the school in about 265 B.C.; New, covering the time of Carneades who became the
most prominent spokesman on behalf of the Academy against Stoicism; Fourth,
including Philo of Larisa; and Fifth, ending with Antiochus of Ascalon.
27 As consul, the emperor was the supreme head of the Roman Empire. As imperator
and dominus, he marshalled the battlefield. As pontifex maximus, he was head of the
native Roman religion, and finally, as augustus and divus, he was the object of a
religious cult that all Roman citizens were required to revere in addition to their
personal beliefs.
28 The Hellenic era refers to a period between 507 B.C. when Athens first initiated a
democracy, and the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.
29 Initially, it was the affluent and influential that received a better education than
others. Slaves had no civil rights and so were not educated. It was also generally
 The origins of academic education 29
regarded as inappropriate or wasteful for servants and women to receive an
education.
30 The Parthenon was designed by the sculptor Phidias and built by Ictinus, Mnescicles
and Callicrates between 447 and 432 B.C. It follows the Doric order of arrangement
as accepted after the sixth century B.C., with the exception that eight columns adorn
the east and west façades, as opposed to the more customary configuration of the
time, of six columns.
31 Only the very broadest of generalisations could suggest when myth started to be
divorced from speculation at the time. It is likely that certain characters before and
elsewhere had pondered in this way, and conversely, that many Ionians of the time
retained a belief in mysticism.
32 The Athenian approach varied from the more primitive Spartan concept of Paideia,
which imbued overt military overtones. Plutarch’s portrait of the Spartan soldier’s
education includes: ‘Of reading and writing, they learned only enough to serve their
turn; all the rest of their training was calculated to make them obey commands well,
endure hardships, and conquer in battle. Therefore, as they grew in age, their bodily
exercise was increased; their heads were close-clipped, and they were accustomed to
going bare-foot, and to playing for the most part without clothes. When they were
twelve years old, they no longer had tunics to wear, received one cloak a year, had
hard, dry flesh, and knew little of baths and ointments; only on certain days of the
year, and few at that, did they indulge in such amenities. They slept together, in
troops and companies, on pallet-beds which they collected for themselves, breaking
off with their hands – no knives allowed – the tops of the rushes which grew along
the river Eurotas. In the winter-time, they added to the stuff of these pallets the so-
called “lycophon”, or thistle-down, which was thought to have warmth in it.’ Plu-
tarch, Life of Lycurgus, XVI:6–7.
33 The group also tackled phenomena most men deemed terrifying; thunder, lightning,
earthquakes, eclipses and periodic destruction of the cosmos itself. William Mullen
observes that: ‘It set about to explain these phenomena in terms of the same ele-
mental processes (transformations of water, rarefaction and condensation of air,
separating fire, air, water and earth, periodic re-absorption of these elements into a
state of dynamic equilibrium) as it invoked to explain the orderly arrangement of the
earth and the heavenly bodies. In so doing, it implied the fallibility of the traditional
Olympian religion that attributed lightning and earthquakes to whims of Zeus and
Poseidon, and world-destruction to battles of the sky-gods.’ Abstract of talk at Bard
College, New York, 2015.
34 In his studies of geometry, Pythagoras noticed that geometrical figures like triangles
possess certain unchanging formal characteristics that are independent of the figure’s
physical material. He also reasoned that every object in the world must possess an
underlying form that exists independently of its physical matter and provides its
essential characteristics.
35 In addition to the emergence of new schools, establishments situated elsewhere began
to relocate to Athens; a notable example is Eudoxus of Cnidus’ school of mathe-
matics, which moved to Athens in 368 B.C.
36 More than sixty treatises were attributed to Hippocrates, though it is not clear that
he wrote any one of them. The treatises, however, relate to many medical perspec-
tives that generally go against the grain of popular ancient medicine and supernatural
causes of illness and healing. It appears that Hippocrates was concerned with the
accurate recording of diseases, rather than their treatment. It is widely regarded that
the school became the foundation upon which rests modern medicine.
37 Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus, 15:8.
38 Plato, The Laws, part 813.
39 Ibid., part 794.
40 Ibid., parts 809–810.
30 The origins of academic education
41 Not to be confused with Plato’s mentor, Socrates.
42 Plato championed the same goals, but with dialectics as the chief method for his
teaching.
43 Bowen notes: ‘It appears that Isocrates had been assigned the liturgy of providing
one-half of the cost of maintenance and repair of a warship, which shows that he
charged high fees – ten minae – which any Demosthenes could not afford.’ Bowen,
James, A History of Western Education: The Ancient World: Orient and Medi-
terranean. 2000 B.C. – A.D.1054, Vol. 1, Methuen & Co Ltd., London, 1972, p. 94.
44 Aristotle stayed at the Academy from the age of eighteen; scholastic opinion on how
long he stayed there varies from between seventeen to twenty years.
45 Bowen notes that ‘Aristotle was opposed particularly to the effort by Plato to equate
philosophy with mathematics – and it is reasonable to suppose that he could have
developed his ideas while staying at the Academy for so long only if Plato were in
fact absent’. Bowen, History of Western Education, p. 115.
46 The gymnasium was in turn named after the nearby temple to Apollo, Lycean (from
the Greek name ‘lukos’, meaning ‘wolf’, an animal dedicated to Apollo).
47 The Hellenistic era spans the end of the Hellenic period (the death of Alexander the
Great in 323 B.C.) to Rome’s conquest of Greece in 146 B.C.
48 Six major German tribes, including the Visigoths and the Vandals, participated in
the fragmentation and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The Vandals were
made up of two tribes, the Asdings and the Silings.
49 Some have argued that the university has routes extending back to ancient times.
Pedersen notes that some scholars have attempted to link Plato’s Academy with the
university in Paris. Pedersen, Olaf, The First Universities:Stadium General and the
Origins of University Education in Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1997, p. 1. A more tangible ancestry of the university, however, can be traced to the
Dominicans, or Order of Preachers, whose founding member, St Dominic, ministered
in the Languedoc. When he died in 1221, his group of followers rapidly grew to over
500 friars who turned towards a pursuit of intellectualism.
50 The unions comprised groups of students known as ‘nations’ who were studying at
Bologna and were from similar geographical origins. They were formed as a means
to bring pressure on their landlords to improve their living conditions and keep rent
prices down. The only way they could exert their strength was by threatening to
move away from the district in unison. In so doing, the students would have caused
serious economic ruin as the local community was reliant upon students for its
income. Another motive for the formation of ‘nations’ was to bring pressure upon
the teachers to accept them as a distinct group, thus socially elevating the position of
the student. One result of a student campaign in 1189 saw the town council declare
that the teachers were not permitted to instruct Roman law anywhere other than
Bologna. Again, the students’ form of attack was a mass exodus, rendering the tea-
chers with no income.
51 Rashdall, Hastings, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, Vol. 1., Clar-
endon Press, Oxford, 1895, p. 5. In two volumes, the book was the first authoritative
publication in the nineteenth century to study the history of the University with
academic rigour. The seminal work inspired a list of other enquiries and studies in
the field.
52 The term Studia Generale, which became common during the thirteenth century,
refers not so much to a place where a variety of disciplines are studied, but a place
that is attended by people from many different areas. This does not exclude the fact
that some studia did indeed teach many various subjects.
53 Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, p. 5.
54 Ibid., p. 10.
55 Ibid., p. 9.
56 Ibid., p. 16.
 The origins of academic education 31
57 Though most of the educational methods performed at the guilds were based on oral
instruction, collections of ‘fail-safe’ principles and instructions began to be collated
in book form and stored at the guilds’ workshops. One such ‘art bible’ was Her-
aclius’ Colours and the Arts of the Romans, which simply listed tried and tested art
methods and colour matches that were deemed to be beautiful and were written in a
prescribed format.
58 Some apprentices also received a wage, while others, perhaps those under the direc-
tion of a particularly eminent master, sometimes paid a fee for the honour and
implied superior skills that would be transferred to the novice.
59 The Bachelor’s certificate was the equivalent to the guilds’ Journeyman certificate,
whilst the Master’s certificate was roughly equal to the guilds’ Master’s certificate.
60 Hankins, James, ‘Humanist Academies and the “Platonic Academy of Florence”’, in
On Renaissance Academies: Proceedings of the International Conference “From the
Roman Academy to the Danish Academy in Rome,” 11–13 October 2006, ed. Mar-
ianne Pade, Edizioni Quasar, Rome, 2011, pp. 31–46.
61 Pevsner, Nikolaus, The Academies of Art: Past and Present, Da Capo Press, New
York, 1973, p. 2.
62 There is some debate as to the existence of the platonic academy; it was regarded as
fictitious by the art historian Gustavo Uzielli, and Arnaldo Della Torre’s colossal
Storia dell’Accademia Platonica di Firenze received a sceptical review by critic Giu-
seppe Zippel. However, it is Hankins who perhaps has undertaken the most rigorous
academic study of the institution and concluded that Della Torre’s account is some-
times, ‘misled by the playful and metaphorical ways of talking indulged in by huma-
nists’. Hankins, Humanist Academies and the Platonic Academy of Florence, p. 1.
63 Ficino, Marsilio, Opera Omnia, Bottega d’Erasmo, Torino, 1576 repr. 1959, I 909.
64 The Academy was initially orchestrated by King Alfonso and Antonio Panormita,
though was later led by Giovanni Gioviano Pontano when the king died in 1471.
65 Pevsner, The Academies of Art, p. 3.
66 Leon Battista Alberti had previously hinted at some of the new educational ideas in
his books; On Painting (1436), On Sculpture (1464) and The Books on Architecture
(1450–72), however, these never set out a programme or curriculum.
67 Vasari was an early form of spin-doctor for the Medici family. The move to create
the academy was spurred by the feeling that the age of greatness was passing, which
had implications for its political ambitions. The Medici family desired to gain poli-
tical support (by being seen to be philanthropists with a heart for civic welfare)
while at the same time offload money that was ‘sinfully’ earned by banking; i.e.
without working – usury. Dante’s Inferno names blasphemers, sodomists and bank-
ers as those destined for hell, while Pope Eugenius IV said to Cosimo that he could
‘unburden’ himself by commissioning civic and religious buildings. Though Cosimo
was concerned for his spiritual fate, obliging the Pope’s request resulted in his gain-
ing favour from the masses.
68 Since 1873 many of Michelangelo’s most important works have been in the Accade-
mia; the most famous is David, completed in 1504.
69 Pevsner, Academies of Art, p. 16.
70 Tangible evidence of the shift seems to become ever more elusive as modern scholars
tell a more complex version of the story of art and architectural history outside of
the old chronological classification systems. It is becoming more common that terms
such as ‘classical’, ‘baroque’ and ‘neoclassical’ are being used not so much to
describe a period in time, but a particular attitude that transcends a much longer
time spectrum. The same can be said of other terms used to describe French epochs
such as ‘Louis XIV’, ‘Louis XV’ and ‘Louis XVI’. These terms can no longer refer to
eras that correspond to the time that the monarch reigned. For instance, the Louis
XV style (characterised by light natural forms) was perceptible about 1690, yet Louis
XV reigned from 1715 to 1774.
2 The Formation of the
Académie d’Architecture

Colbert and the French Académies

Louis XIV (1638–1715) ascended the French throne in 1643 at the age of four.
He reigned for seventy-two years, the longest of any monarch of a major Eur-
opean country. When his Prime Minister, Jules Mazarin (1602–1661) died on 10
March 1661, the monarch declared the following day that he would not appoint
a successor, but would himself govern France and therefore ‘rule as well as
reign’. The king had never received any formal education; however, he did act
his part well. In the two decades that followed, a run of successfully fought
wars, together with a skilful administration of natural resources enabled France
to acquire a seemingly inexhaustible river of wealth, for which the king was
amply glorified. The leading proponent of his fame was none other than him-
self. Many of his subjects were also grateful of the security, stability and wealth
afforded to them during his reign; even the soldier, diplomatist and writer Louis
de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon, (who disliked Louis XIV) wrote of him:

His figure, his courage, his grace, his beauty, his grand mien, even the tone
of his voice and the majestic and natural charm of all his person dis-
tinguished him till his death as the King Bee, and showed that if he had been
born a simple private gentleman, he would equally have excelled in fêtes,
pleasures, and gallantry, and would have had the greatest success in love.1

Louis XIV ruled France as an absolute monarch. He relied on the actions of his
guards and troops to quench even the slightest uprising. The young king was
noted to have said ‘a little severity was the greatest kindness I could have for
my people’. With a mind concerned with the national good, Louis XIV ordered
the fair distribution of grain at times of famine and paid for food using perso-
nal resources to distribute without charge. He punished traders who sought to
profit from his people’s misfortune and cajoled the nobles into taking action
against injustice. With the same decisiveness, Louis XIV effectively reduced the
importance and rank of all other chief rivals for his power. After gaining prime
ministerial authority, the king subdued all the noble ranks. Even close family
members were refused political power. Unsurprisingly, despite the glory that
 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture 33
the king brought to France, his methods and motives attracted an onslaught of
criticism from those who suffered under his rule. Louis XIV’s defence against
the inevitable condemnation lay in his strong affiliation with the French state.
He saw himself as more than the country’s leader, but the embodiment of
France itself; thus, any glorification he received he identified with the glorifica-
tion of France. The historian Blomfield writes,

There is this, too to be said for the King, that if his ambition might seem to
be set on his personal glory, he identified France with himself, and believed
that in glorifying himself he was in fact glorifying his country. Perhaps he
was a true Frenchman in his effort after an ideal, regardless of obstacles
and reckless cost. The glory that he aimed at may not have been wholly
remote from the ideals which carried Napoleon’s men from victory to vic-
tory, and that inspired the soldiers of France in the late war.2

Whether driven by nationalistic patronage or pure egotism, Louis XIV used his
nation’s immense population to significant military benefit, thus by the end of
the seventeenth-century France ensured its position as the European military
and cultural super-power.
Accompanying France’s dominance was an emerging preoccupation with
reason and rational order. Rationalism became the presiding epistemological
stance, and it was not long before Louis XIV realised that scrutiny of reason
and order could benefit his crusade for absolute power. The laws of a rationa-
listic universe were ones that had no exception, and in like fashion, the king did
not discourage emerging proclamations that he ruled from the throne in a way
that emulated the sun guiding the planets in their orbits. The picture of his
glorious majesty brightly illuminating his subjects led Louis XIV to take upon
himself the title Roi Soleil, the Sun King. The symbol of the sun appeared on
coinage, in the decorations of his palaces, on emblems, and inscriptions in offi-
cial documents. With the assertion of French power abroad and the widespread
interest in Rationalism that led to an unprecedented rise in cultural achievement
came a reluctance by French society to recognise the darker sides of their king;
thus, the reign of Louis XIV was soon called the Grand Siècle.
Louis XIV was twenty-three years old when he declared himself Prime Min-
ister and was unwilling to run the economics of his country. For that, he
appointed Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683), the minister of finance, to
administer his policies. In doing so, the king possibly made the best decision of
his monarchic reign. Colbert’s experience as chief of staff under Mazarin led
him to become a prominent pioneer of mercantilism.3 His political career
quickly progressed to include the role of advisor to the king on almost every
matter of importance, whether political, economic, religious or artistic, and he
came to be the engineer of the state machine on which the king based his cru-
sade for deity-like power. Acting as the king’s political trumpet, Colbert was
widely respected by the French middle-classes, (except on occasions when their
privileges were threatened), although his inability to put real order into the
34 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture
finances of the Kingdom and his limited economic outlook restricted his achieve-
ments. Louis XIV and Colbert nevertheless carried their principles of national
power and unity into the intellectual as well as mercantile spheres. Colbert and
the king had established a good working agreement based on the young king’s
lack of interest in economics; indeed, Louis XIV confessed he was, ‘bored by such
matters and much preferred to receive the surrender of a Dutch fortress than to
visit an armaments factory’.4 The king was content to leave economic affairs to
his minister who, in turn, was able to work towards his understanding of ideal
stately governance with no effective authority to restrain him.
Colbert believed that manufacturing was the best way to enrich the French
state. He argued that if France was to produce all that it needed, the state could
avoid imports and bring in the wealth of others through mutually beneficial
export agreements. Furthermore, by protecting, regulating and supervising eco-
nomic sectors, Colbert was convinced that the government could make them
flourish. He held his mercantile views so firmly that he even sought to govern
every form of the creative arts. Colbert reasoned, for a workforce worthy of
producing arts and crafts of an exportable quality, it was necessary to invest in
a range of institutions. Firstly, he instigated a collection of schools for practical
learning, the most notable of which was the Manufacture Royale des Meubles
de la Couronne, known initially as the Gobelins after its founder, Jean Gobe-
lin.5 In 1662 Louis XIV purchased the Gobelins manufactory, and there Colbert
united all the royal artisans to create a royal tapestry and furniture works. The
institution was tasked with the job of producing decorations and creating every
necessary piece of furniture, painting, sculpture, engraving, tapestry and
embroidery for the king’s residences, especially the Palais de Versailles.
Versailles was an enormous building; it had 700 rooms, 67 staircases and
comfortably accommodated 20,000 people. To facilitate the quantity and vari-
ety of arts to adorn the king’s monumentally extravagant building project,
Colbert introduced a string of new art-forms within the Gobelins. The army of
over two hundred and fifty workers consisted of: painters, sculptors, engravers,
weavers, dyers, embroiderers, goldsmiths, cabinetmakers, wood-carvers, marble
workers and mosaicists. Charles Le Brun (1619–1690), the Premier peintre du
Roi in France at the time, was commissioned with the auspicious job of
directing and orchestrating designs at the Gobelin from 1663 to 1690.6 Le Brun
was an excellent choice by Colbert for the position. His imaginative and com-
prehensive repertoire of artistic skills was equalled only by his managerial
qualities and his ability to inspire and control teams of artists.7 Le Brun was
also an excellent teacher, and after four years of leading, he instigated a school
to accompany the workshop functions.8
The establishment of a school within the Gobelins, however, was no mere
additional benefit to the king’s artistic production line. Colbert encouraged Le
Brun’s leadership at the school as a positive alternative to the system of guilds,
which retained a medieval methodology and lay outside royal authority.9 Through
the monarchic control of the Gobelins, Colbert managed to facilitate an alter-
native artistic education system, and enable an accredited student of the Gobelins
 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture 35
to become exempt from the guilds, have the same freedoms as an artist or archi-
tect (who had lodgings in the Louvre) and enjoy the king’s direct employment.
In addition to the guilds, a second competitor that posed a threat to Colbert’s
ideology was the amateur, who claimed that, by reason of his enthusiasm for the
arts, his opinion on their merits and conduct is as authoritative as that of men
who have devoted their lives to their study and mastery. The guilds were, how-
ever, a more dangerous force to be reckoned with and Colbert was well aware
that the Gobelins was not a powerful enough mechanism in its own right to
curtail the dissident groups. Colbert’s response was to create a string of acadé-
mies as a means to place all educational establishments under royal dominion.
The first French académie, the Académie Française, was founded in 1635,
before Colbert’s ministerial appointment, and during the reign of Louis XIII.
The literary academy was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of the time, Car-
dinal Richelieu (1585–1642), and it remains in existence to this day. Richelieu’s
school used the title Académie because of the significant nuances the term had
acquired during the Italian Renaissance; thus, the new French institution
implicitly inherited the Italian academic reputation and its associations with
genius and social elitism. Colbert was quick to recognise the potential that the
academies offered as a system to exert his political and commercial intentions
and developed plans during the early 1660s to create a building for a grande
académie. The single institution was intended to have sections for humanities
(the study of the human condition), history, philosophy and mathematics, but
omitted the fine arts and architecture. The omission of an academy for the fine
arts may, in part, be because Le Brun had already founded the Académie de
Peinture et de Sculpture in 1648.10 However, it is less clear why there appears to
be no intention to create an academy for architecture. In light of the importance
given to architecture as a means to exert regal power, and the fact that the
academies were founded largely for the purpose of combating the hegemony of
the medieval guilds of craftsmen it is perhaps surprising that architecture did
not feature more prominently in Colbert’s academic aspirations. In any event,
there is no evidence that a single institution with multiple faculties ever came to
fruition. Instead, once Colbert’s position of political authority had become
established, and he was able to proceed with his mercantile plans unabated, he
set into motion the founding of numerous separate Académies over the follow-
ing ten years: Académie de Danse (1661), Académie des Inscriptions et
Médailles (1663) (after 1716 known as the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-
Lettres), Académie des Sciences (1666), Académie de France à Rome (1666),
Académie de Musique (1669), and finally, on 31 December 1671, Colbert and
the architect Nicolas-François Blondel (1618–1686) founded the Académie
d’Architecture.11
Rather than functioning as a school, the Académie d’Architecture was initi-
ally envisaged to be a collector of architectural thought, intended to provide a
library of knowledge for the king. Its principal endeavour was to establish, ‘les
règles les plus justes et les plus correctes de l’architecture’.12 Chafee notes:
36 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture
The purpose of this Academy, like that of the others, was study. The emi-
nent architects whom the King had named academicians met once a week
to share their learning; their discussions were intended to solve archi-
tectural problems.13

Primarily, the Académie d’Architecture was to be a forum of distinguished

architects who discussed architectural matters and advised the king on his
building programme.14 Records from the inception of the architectural academy
were kept and published by Lemonnier as he deemed future conferences would
benefit from such a collection of gained knowledge.15 Almost as a sideline, it
was considered noble for the young to benefit from the Académie’s studies in
architectural matters by conducting a school. It was not long before equal
importance was placed on its two fundamental purposes, namely, providing the
king with a library of knowledge, and the teaching of this gained knowledge to
selected members. Of all the academies, the Académie d’Architecture and the
Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture were the only two that implemented a
teaching system comprising public lectures. The school at the architectural
institution evolved from a series of public lectures by Blondel, which he pre-
sented on two days of the week,16 and which became the sole mode of teaching
during the formative years of the school. Although the Académie d’Architecture
controlled the school and its lecture series, it remained an instrument of the
state; thus, royal ministers closely supervised them. This tight rein over the
lectures as can be seen by Colbert’s requirement for the second hour to be on
matters other than aesthetics, namely, on scientific and mathematical knowl-
edge, which were considered, ‘absolutely necessary to the architect’.17 These
scientific and mathematical subjects included geometry, arithmetic, mechanics,
hydraulics, fortifications, perspective and stone cutting.
As with the creation of the Gobelins, all the academies were more politically
inspired than motivated by a desire to better educate the people of France and
during its formative years the Académie d’Architecture was no exception. The
underlying aim in forging the French academies was:

… to settle once and for all the differences between the free artists and the
‘Corps de la Maîtrise’, or master painters and sculptors, who wished to
insist on a close trades-union in which all artists were to be compulsorily
enrolled and registered, and outside of which no artists were to be allowed
to ply their art at all. The guilds had become mere trades-unions in the
most aggravated form. To such bodies the establishment of the new Acad-
emy was naturally a mortal offence, and the jealousy of the Maîtrise was
inevitable and persistent.18

Colbert vehemently believed that the purpose of art and architectural academies
was to assert the power and prestige of the state. The Académie d’Architecture
and the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture were of particular use to Colbert
as they offered a convenient mode by which to regulate the respective
 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture 37
professions. However, after the establishment of the academies, the tactics
Colbert used to quash the guilds were often diplomatic so as not to cause a
public revolt. As Blomfield notes;

The Academy [that is specifically, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de

Sculpture] did its best to conciliate the Maîtrise by granting special privileges
to the ‘Maistres jurés’, and in 1651 gave them privileges and a share in the
Academy almost tantamount to those of the Academicians themselves.19

In characteristic form, the guilds showed no interest and actively endeavoured to

frustrate the academies in every way they could. The battle continued for ten
years until the guilds reluctantly admitted that the academies were a permanent
fixture in the educational scene and only an uncompromising remnant of guild
campaigners ‘claimed their pretended monopoly’.20 Colbert’s concern with gain-
ing control over educational institutions dominated his thoughts; the question of
how the art and architectural academies should teach was a much less significant
issue to him. However, with the overwhelming emerging shift towards rationa-
listic truth during the seventeenth century, it is no surprise that these academies
taught in the same vein as their Italian counterparts and proffered universal
principles of art and architecture to students in a didactic format.
Colbert recognised that Richelieu’s choice of the term Académie was crucial
to the success of his plan to draw professionals from the guilds to his new set of
institutions. The title attracted architects, painters and sculptors by elevating
these men in the hierarchy of society from the rank of a craftsman to that of an
academician. It was an appellation that carried connotations of Plato’s revered
academy as well as the academies of the Italian Renaissance with their huma-
nist learning. Thus, the seventeenth-century French educational system took on
the title Académie because of the nuances it carried as a pioneering system that
collected and distributed knowledge.

The accommodation of the Académie d’Architecture

The French Prime Minister, Jules Mazarin,21 had long admired and worked
under Cardinal Richelieu, who founded the Académie Française and had given to
the king the Palais Cardinal, later known as the Palais Royale.22 With Richelieu
having set the philanthropic precedent, Mazarin planned that upon his death his
estate would finance a monumental public building to be called the Collège des
Quatre-Nations, which was to be dedicated to the edification of international
students, so that they may capture a lasting admiration of the French people.
Within the college walls, Mazarin proposed a riding academy, a public library
(although not open to all the public), a college for boys from four collections of
foreign territories to learn French culture,23 and his tomb.
On face value the college appears to be a considerable act of generosity; how-
ever, it transpires that the bequest was a means to avoid public disgrace. On 9
March 1661 doctors gathered to Mazarin’s deathbed not knowing that he had
38 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture
become the nation’s wealthiest man.24 The disposing of his enormous estate, which
he had acquired by fraudulent means, presented Mazarin with a problem that, even
with his extensive history of successful political negotiations, proved to be a com-
plicated affair.25 Mazarin’s concern stemmed from the threat of an inventory, a
common practice of the time to ascertain assets of a figure who is thought to have
had substantial wealth upon their death. The exposition of his corrupt financial
management was all the more expected given the extraordinary rapidity with
which Mazarin accrued his wealth; except for the Palais Mazarin, all of the cardi-
nal’s assets were amassed within the last nine years of his life. For fear that the
king might reclaim the fortune, and thwart his plans for an enduring legacy,
Mazarin made a calculated and risky proposition. He offered the king his entire
estate on the gamble that it would be rejected because of the likely public outcry (it
is suggested that the king’s acceptance of the estate would be a disavowal of
Mazarin’s recent diplomatic achievements). It only just paid off, and after three
days of deliberation, the king declined the gift. The King’s rejection enabled
Mazarin to prohibit an inventory of his will, and he set out instructions for his
accounts to be sorted by his chief of staff, who was none other than Colbert.26
Upon Mazarin’s death, Colbert carried out his master’s financial will and
continued to pursue the early designs for the Collège des Quatre-Nations with
the architect Louis Le Vau (1612–1670).27 On 13 August 1662, Le Vau sub-
mitted a drawing that showed the college and riding school (the latter of which

Figure 2.1 The Collège des Quatre-Nations, Paris. The building was constructed on the
bank of the Seine opposite the Louvre and currently houses the tomb of
Mazarin in the college chapel. After the closure of the building during the
Revolution, the complex was used for various purposes. However, in 1805 it
was given to the Institut de France and became known as the Palais de l’In-
stitut de France.
 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture 39
by now had become of little importance to the board of executors who oversaw
the scheme) pushed to the rear of the site,28 with the library occupying most of
the east wing. The arrangement accommodated most of Mazarin’s require-
ments, while not claiming any part of a vast curved façade which faces the
Louvre. For this area, Le Vau, ‘invented a program of his own. He conceived
the west pavilion as the seat of four academies relating to the arts’.29 A drawing
of the first-floor level by Le Vau annotates six academies: mathematics, paint-
ing, sculpture, engineering, fortifications and architecture.
The note sketched on Le Vau’s drawing of 1662 is the first ever recorded
mention of a separate academy for architecture. It is possible that Le Vau made
this note not merely because of his interests as an architect, but also to address
Colbert’s imbalanced desire at that time to form the Académie de Peinture et de
Sculpture while making no mention of an architectural equivalent.
In the summer of 1662 building work started, although the shell was not com-
pleted until 1670, the year of the death of Le Vau. François d’Orbay (1634–1697),
Le Vau’s chief draughtsman, finished much of the internal design work, including
the chapel in 1674. As it transpired, the academies did not take up residency when
it opened, and instead, the façade became occupied by college personnel. Thus, the
Académie d’Architecture took up its first residency on 31 December 1671 at the

(a) (b)

Figures 2.2a–b The Collège des Quatre-Nations, Paris. First floor plan (a – extract, b –
scaled section of extract), drawn 1662. Pen, ink and coloured paint on
paper. The caption adjacent to the extracted area reads, ‘Les quatre
académies pour’ and continues in the rooms of the building, ‘l’archi-
tecture / mathématiques / peinture et sculpture / pour les ins ingenieur
fortification’.
40 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture
Palais Brion, then a lodge attached to the western side of the Palais Royal where
Richelieu, Mazarin, Ann of Austria (Queen Mother), and Louis XIV had all once
resided. It was demolished in the 1930s, although its flanking rows of columns still
stand between the Cour d’Honneur and the Jardin du Palais Royal.30 Between
1634 and 1639 Richelieu acquired an enormous adjoining area that he in part
further developed, but mostly reserved for a huge enclosed garden. Richelieu
bequeathed the building to the French Crown at which point it became known as
the Palais Royal. When Louis XIII died shortly afterwards, the property came to
house Anne of Austria (the Queen Mother), her two sons Louis XIV and Philippe,
Duc d’Orléans, and Mazarin. In 1780 it was considerably expanded by Victor
Louis who added rows of two-storey houses enclosing a courtyard and arcades of
shops lining the interior garden. The Palais Brion section was demolished in 1784,
along with eastern parts of the Palais Royal, to make way for the Théâtre-Fran-
çaise, now the Comédie-Française.31
The apartment within the Palais Brion that housed the Académie d’Archi-
tecture was converted to enable connection (if only physically) with the Acadé-
mie de Peinture et de Sculpture, which had taken up residence in September
1661. The imposing building was aligned with the northern wing of the Louvre,
which is a testimony to the high regard that the monarchy, and its governing
ministers, had for the Académie d’Architecture (if not their desire for it to be
highly regarded by the others).
On 4th February 1692, the Académie d’Architecture moved to new accom-
modation in the Louvre.32 For thirty years, the Académie resided on the first

Figure 2.3 The Palais Royal, Paris. Ground floor plan, drawn 1629. Pen, ink, and
coloured paint on paper. The Palais Brion is shown on the left of the image.
The toned area (by Author) denotes the first residence of the Académie
d’Architecture.
 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture 41
floor in the northern wing (the wing furthest away from the river), but was
moved again in 1722 to the southern wing, where it remained until its closure
during the Revolution in 1793.

(a)

(b) (c)

Figure 2.4a–c The Louvre, Paris. Ground floor plan, drawn 1756. Pen, ink, and coloured
paint on paper (grey area by Author). Regarding the top plan (4a), at the
bottom of the image, the grey area denotes the extent that the Académie
d’Architecture occupied from 1692 to 1722, an extract of this area forms
(4b); the grey area to the top of the image denotes the extent the Académie
d’Architecture occupied from 1722 to 1793 when it was abolished (formally
the Le Grand Appartement de la Reine, designed by Chambrigues in 1566
and 1570), an extract of this area forms (4c). Regarding the bottom left plan
(4b), the key to the plan in Blondel’s Architecture Françoise reads (pp. 26–7):
42 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture
B1 Antichambre
B2 Deuxième antichambre
B3 La Salle des Académiciens (Blondel notes that it is in this room where
‘mathématiques’ was taught to the public on Mondays or Wednesdays)
B4 Salle (Blondel notes that it is this room where architecture was taught to
the public on Mondays)
B5 Dépôt pour les models
B6 Passage pour arriver à l’éscalier qui monte aux entrefols

Many rooms were at a mezzanine level, reached via a staircase owing to a

temporary roof at the main floor level (premier étage); much of the Louvre
lacked a roof at the level of the attic.
Regarding the bottom right plan (4c), this extract shows the plan of the
Louvre at second floor level. The key to the lower plan in the Lemonnier’s
Procès-Verbaux reads:

(A) Escalier pour monter à l’Académie

(B) Passage
(C) Chambre de retraite de Messieurs de l’Académie avec l’entrés sole au
dessus
(D) Cabinet ou salle où M. De la Hire enseigne l’architecture.
(E) Salle où se tiennent les conférences de l’assemblée de l’Académie
(F) Chambres où il y a partie des models

The Louvre was made available after the king vacated the premises and took
up residence at Versailles. Once the king had moved to his new abode, the
Louvre was almost entirely abandoned for over seventy-five years. Bayne St.
John describes the neglected building ‘with moss, and grass, and plants, and
wall-like flowers, like an old village church’.33 He continued to cite a plan of
1739 to depict the utter abandonment the Louvre suffered.

It reminds one of an Egyptian temple miserably buried amidst mud villages

and heaps of rubbish. A whole quarter stretched between it and the Tui-
leries, with the Hôtel de Longueville still in the centre. Houses climbed up
the walls in various parts; and in the middle of the quadrangle was a block
of standard cottages, with gardens and courts. Two-thirds of the building
was without a roof.34

After the king had moved from the Louvre, its quarters were opened to all the
académies and many other artists and artisans with royal connections. To pro-
vide adequate space for the collection of artisans that eventually resided at the
Louvre, many of its great halls were divided by temporary partitions both verti-
cally and horizontally. New staircases and chimneys were introduced, which
unapologetically cut through whichever wall or floor lay in its path: ‘on all sides
projected iron tubes of the most hideous shape, that perpetually vomited smoke
 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture 43

Figure 2.5 The Louvre, Paris. Site perspective during the time of the occupation of the
Académie d’Architecture, from the Plan du Turgot, 1739. Pen on paper
drawn by Louis Bretez. Jacques-François Blondel describes the area as being
accurate at the time of his writing (volume 4 was published between 1752 and
1756). It shows buildings that bear little relationship to the Louvre within the
central courtyard.

and soot’.35 However, had the Louvre not been occupied by the academic and art
communities since its abandonment by the king, the Louvre would have no doubt
suffered far greater dereliction by thieves and riotous gangs.
The Académie remained at the Louvre until its abolition in 1793. The only
interruption that caused it to close, other than the Revolution, was a decree in
early 1694, which was the result of financial difficulties following the war of the
League of Augsburg. The Académie’s minutes do not state the precise date of
the closure; however, it was brief as the Académie d’Architecture (then under
the directorship of Villacerf) joined forces with the Académie de France à Rome
(directed by La Teulière) and petitioned the king who in turn reopened it on 21
April of the same year. During the entire time of the Académie’s stay at the
Louvre, the buildings remained a dull reflection of their former glory. A plan to
restore the building complex was drafted, and a decree issued in 1793, imme-
diately after the Académie’s dissolution, and all occupants were removed to
make way for the Muséum Central des Arts, now known as the Musée du
Louvre.36
44 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture
The escalating social status of the Architect during the seventeenth
century
During the middle of the seventeenth century, the term Architect slowly became
more commonly used in France to refer to those who designed certain types of
buildings generally associated with the monarchy or the church, and important
civic or public monuments within an urban planning framework.37 The word
Architect is derived from the Latin architectus or the Greek arkhitekton. 38 The
term started to become more commonplace in France during the latter half of
the seventeenth century, owing to a desire among some representatives of the
building profession to be seen as distinct from the contractor. When, during
the late seventeenth century, architects began to be more regularly employed
by the nobility, they quickly assumed the gentry’s taste for high living and
many settled in the social circles of people with means such as authors and
politicians, who often further promoted the architect in the broader public
realm. Gallet recalls that ‘Fontenelle recommended Pierre de Vigny to the
approbation of the Royal Society in London’, and ‘Thiéry, an author of sev-
eral travellers’ almanacks and a celebrated guide, used to question architects
about their projects and publish the interviews.’39
Among the first wave of noted French aristocracy that started to be referred to
as Architects were Philibert de l’Orme (1514–1570), Jean Bullant (1515–1578),
Étienne Dupérac (1520–1607) and Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (1510–1584).
The following generation consisted of a collection of names that are generally
more familiar today, namely, Jacques Le Mercier (1585–1654), Pierre Le Muet,
(1591–1669) François Mansart (1598–1666) and Louis Le Vau. However, it
remained the situation that throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
the predominant number of buildings, especially residential schemes, were
designed and drawn up by contractors (assisted by Savot’s ‘textbook’ manual and
Lamuet’s engravings) and most architects did not disdain their work by enter-
taining work in suburban areas.40 By the latter quarter of the seventeenth cen-
tury, competition among the bourgeoisie for the highest social standpoint led to a
proliferation of architectural commissions to design châteaux. The middle classes
were more cautious of the ‘unfamiliar’ architect and more resistant to employ
their services until the early eighteenth century; it wished to ‘protect its purse
from the trickery with which it was all too familiar’.41
Because the world of architectural scholarship was broadly only interested in
civic, religious and monarchic buildings together with houses of the nobility,
only scant information exists to tell of the professionals and craftspeople
involved in the production of more modest forms of architecture. However,
Michel Gallet is one of the very few scholars who has investigated the mundane
side to eighteenth-century Parisian architecture. His research is valuable as it
reveals that private agreements and legal certificates often provide illuminating
information on the role of the architect and how buildings were built. In his
book, Paris Domestic Architecture of the Eighteenth Century, Gallet notes that
without the benefit of scholastic attention the best available information that
 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture 45
relates to private architectural work includes ‘taxation records, deeds of suc-
cession, building authorities and agreements between neighbours’.42 Gallet
continues to state that contractual documents between clients and tradespeople
often included the names of architects whose designs formed the basis of the
contract.43 He explains that a contractual agreement always named a principal
contractor and that this figure held sole responsibility for building projects.44
As the growth in urbanity escalated in France during the eighteenth century,
so the pressure upon engineers and masons increased, leading to an explosion of
self-professed architects hungry for more prestigious architectural schemes. The
social standing of the architect grew extensively during the eighteenth century
in unison with the rise of the bourgeoisie. It was not unheard of for an architect
to sell a plot of land he owned on condition that he was novated to design the
building that would utilise the site.45 If he had the capital, an architect would
also sometimes construct an hôtel at his own expense to sell to the newly rich
for them to bear their coat of arms. Often the architect lived as a noble in pri-
vate luxury hôtels and even bore his own coat of arms.46
The architect often assumed total responsibility on projects and in effect took
on the role of a contractor. The extent of his duties frequently started with the
purchasing of a site for a client and ended with the disposition of furniture. He
prepared a collection of drawings, with particular detail given to internal dec-
orations. Gallet notes that ‘Boullée made some 200 drawings for rooms in the
Elysée when they were occupied by Beaujon’.47 Gallet also notes with some
detail the form that the drawings took:

The designs of this period were submitted on plain paper from Holland (e.
g. Blauw and Zoonen). The architect used graphite fitted into a slender
holder, a drawing-pen or a quill. Elevations and sections might have been
touched up with water-colour mixed from a palette containing smalt blue,
green earth, yellow lake, gallstone, carmine and bistre. … To impress those
unresponsive to the abstract nature of plans, the architect turned to mock-
up models, which might be of limewood, service-tree or walnut, cardboard
or Montmarte soapstone.48

At a time when scanning and photocopying were unknown, the architect and
his draughtsmen had plenty of work to do as drawings were not merely
required for building purposes, but also for a myriad of municipal agencies.
The list of authorities that may require a copy of drawings for their archives
includes: the Inspecteur général de la construction routière, the Maître des
Bâtiments, the Bureau des Grand Voyers, the Lieutenance Policière, the Magis-
trature de Montmartre, and others.49 It was not until the nineteenth century
that statutes to regulate the French architectural profession came into being.
Before this time the occupation, duties and rights of an architect were far from
defined. The statutes were, however, a simple formalisation of a long and slow
evolution, the roots of which can be traced back to fifteenth-century Italy. By
the end of the Ancien Régime in France, the statutes had given identity to the
46 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture
architect as distinct to the engineer, municipal official and the corporate traders
of the construction industry (stone masons, masons, carpenters and others), and
later the contractor.50
In 1730 architects’ fees were fixed by a legally authorised scale, which related
to the number of times an architect attended a site.51 The system was amended
about twenty years afterwards, and fees became a percentage of the total cost of
the job, although it appears that these fees were a recommendation rather than
an enforced sum as more notorious architects were able to acquire higher fees
for their services. Gallet also recounts numerous occasions when architects
received gifts instead of cash payment, possibly to avoid being taxed: ‘Soufflot
accepted a snuff-box from the Prince de Condé and the young Chalgrin was
given a watch by the Comte de Saint-Florentine’.52
Socially and culturally the architects of the late seventeenth century, and
throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, were generally representa-
tive members of the middle classes. They ranked alongside the lawyers and
doctors. They were not confined to the cities and often travelled to set up ‘camp
on site’ while a project was underway. Even after the Académie d’Architecture
was created most men wishing to be an architect were trained in the guilds or
were handed their knowledge of the building trade from father to son. Many who
attended the Académie had first received training from elsewhere; the Mansart
family being one of the most famous. However, the inauguration of the academic
system enabled one to assume the position of an architect by purely theoretical
means. Blondel, a mathematician and Claude Perrault, a doctor, both figured as
great architects without ever being masons.

Notes
1 Bayle, St. John, Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, Swan Sonnenschein & Co.,
London, 1900, Vol. 2, p. 357.
2 Blomfield, A History of French Architecture, Vol. 1, p. 6.
3 Mercantilists were primarily concerned with acquiring gold and silver bullion, with-
out which, in the conditions of the seventeenth century, no state could feel indepen-
dent, let alone secure. The bullion was needed to hire troops, buy armaments and fit
out warships. It bought allies in wartime, and it bought food in times of dearth. To
possess bullion was also to deny it to others and so the mercantilists believed that a
country’s wealth was proportional to the poverty of its neighbours. To this end,
foreign trade was regulated to create a surplus of exports over imports, and the state
intervened where necessary by subsidising exports and taxing imports.
4 Williams, E. N., The Ancien Régime: Government and Society in the Major States
1648–1789, Pimlico, London, 1999, p. 153.
5 The Gobelins was initially a tapestry workshop that housed the work of two Flemish
weavers, Marc de Comans and François de la Planche, invited to France by Henri IV
in 1601.
6 The Gobelins was closed from 1694 to 1697; when it was reopened, it specialised in
tapestry. Both low-warp and high-warp weaving were practised until about 1825
when the low-warp power frames were moved to the manufactory of Beauvais; they
were returned to the Gobelins after World War II.
 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture 47
7 Blunt adds that ‘his range of knowledge was vast. He could design a painting, a piece
of garden sculpture, the lock of a door, the border of a tapestry, all with equal ease,
and all in a style which made them suit their function and harmonise with each
other.’ Blunt, Art & Architecture in France 1500–1700, p. 226.
8 A constitution written in 1667 recognised this potential and emphasised the impor-
tance of apprentice training.
9 The origin of the monarchic struggle over the French guilds started during the late
sixteenth century when ‘free’ artists, that is, artists who worked independently of the
guilds, were restrained by the guilds’ ‘rules’ as prescribed by Philip the Fair. Philip
wrote the rules in 1260, and they were reiterated in 1391, 1548, 1555, 1563, 1582 and
1622. The exponential increase in these repetitions is a testimony to the loosening
grip felt by the guild. In spite of the rules, the reigning king of the time, Henry IV,
desired to introduce some form of alternative group of artists because he felt, ‘the
attitude of the guilds was obstructive to his plans for increasing the wealth and
embellishing the appearance of Paris by the introduction of new industries and the
appointment of distinguished craftsmen.’ Pevsner, Academies of Art, pp. 82–3.
10 Initially untitled in 1648, then known as the Académie de St. Luc in 1651 until 1655,
after that it was made a royal enterprise and given its current title. There is some
debate as to who founded, or more specifically, who initiated the Académie de
Peinture et de Sculpture. Chafee states that the academy was set up by Mazarin in
1648. Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts’, p. 1.
However, Broadbent notes that it was started by his successor, Colbert. Broadbent,
Geoffrey, ‘Architectural Education’, in Educating Architects, ed. Martin Pearce &
Maggie Toy, Academy Editions, Academy Group Ltd, London, 1995, p. 13. Pevsner,
maybe wisely, avoids being categorical on the matter. However, in the book, Institut
de France, it is noted that Charles Le Brun, official painter of the Court, was the
initiator. See Amouroux, Henri, Institut de France: Histoire des Cinq Academies,
Perrin, Paris, 1995, p. 282.
11 Lemonnier, Henry, (ed.), Procès-Verbaux de l’Académie Royale d’Architecture,
Paris, 1911–1926 Vol. 1, p. IX.
12 Ibid., p. XXII.
13 Chaffee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts’, p. 61.
14 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. IX.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Blondel, Nicolas-François, Cours d’Architecture: Enseigné dans l’Académie Royale,
Paris, 1698, p. 2.
18 Blomfield, A History of French Architecture, Vol. 1, p. 7.
19 Extract from Procès-Verbaux de l’Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture,
1648–1793, 1874, Vol. 1, p. 45. Cited by, Blomfield, A History of French Archi-
tecture, Vol. 1, p. 7.
20 Ibid.
21 The politician succeeded his mentor, Cardinal Richelieu to serve as the Ministre en
Chef de la France from 1642 until his death. Shortly before Richelieu’s death in 1642
Mazarin was able to affect the reoccupation of Sedan with French troops by a piece
of skilful management, which led Richelieu to recommend him to King Louis XIII as
his successor. He was also made a cardinal on 16 December 1641.
22 After the cardinal’s death, it was renamed the Palais Royal, and during Mazarin’s
residency it was sometimes referred to as the Palais Mazarin.
23 According to the Cardinal’s will, it was to have the following composition: Flanders,
Artois, Hainault and Luxembourg (20 students); Alsace and other Germanic terri-
tories (15 students); Roussillon, Conflans and Ardinia (10 students); Pignerol and the
Papal State (15 students) (Babelon, Jean-Pierre, ‘Louis Le Vau au Collège Mazarin;
Rome à Paris?’, published by Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 2003, pp. 6–
48 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture
7.) Ballon notes that Mazarin was Roman by birth, but French by national allegiance
and had been instrumental in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 and the Treaty of the
Pyrenees in 1659, which could have made him sensitive to ‘conflicting cultural and
political ties in the [French] borderlands’. In this regard, the Collège des Quatre-
Nations was contrived to be something that honoured Mazarin’s achievements.
Ballon, Hilary, Louis Le Vau: Mazarin’s Collège, Colbert’s Revenge, Princeton Uni-
versity Press, Princeton, 1999, p. 15.
24 For a study of Mazarin’s fortune see Dessert, Daniel, ‘Pouvoir et finance au XVIIIe
Siècle: La fortune du Cardinal Mazarin’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine,
Vol. 23, no. 2 (1976), pp. 161–181, which concentrates on the period after the Fronde
(1652–1662). A figure of 39 million livres reflects only documented assets and may
underestimate Mazarin’s wealth if he had hidden assets beyond the French borders as
his contemporaries believed.
25 Upon the death of Louis XIII on 14 May 1642, Anne of Austria left the Philippe, Duc
d’Orléans the shadowy title of Lieutenant Général du Royaume, (a title that was
always attributed to princes of the Royal Family and was thus a junior branch of the
ruling house) and gave the reality of power to Mazarin. In his political position,
Mazarin exploited structural weaknesses in the French fiscal system to exceptional
extents and profited amply from the blurred boundaries between state and private
resources.
26 Although the king ordered an inventory regardless, he unwittingly appointed Colbert
to oversee matters. Colbert, endeavouring to save his own career, craftily failed to
disclose all of Mazarin’s assets while satisfying the probate standards.
27 Mazarin had intended the construction of the Collège des Quatre-Nations to be
undertaken by the Italian architect Gianlorenzo Bernini, but Bernini showed little
interest in the commission. Another unknown artist submitted in his absence, but it
was not accepted. Colbert then suggested three Parisian architects, Le Vau, Mansart
and Le Mau. Surprisingly, Mazarin batted the decision back to Colbert who chose
the King’s Architect, Le Vau. La Vau submitted two proposals to Mazarin before his
death. No record remains of the initial scheme; however, the second is currently on
display at the Louvre. The project director was Jean de Gomont who meticulously
recorded minutes ‘so that posterity will be aware of the effort that led to the rea-
lisation of this great design’. Hilary Ballon, in turn, has recorded these minutes in
her book, Louis Le Vau: Mazarin’s Collège, Colbert’s Revenge, Princeton University
Press, Princeton, 1999.
28 Incidentally, it was here that the future critic of the academic schools, the painter David,
was ‘hit by a stone that broke one of his teeth; this resulted in a tumour that permanently
deformed his face’, Babelon, Louis Le Vau au Collège Mazarin, p. 32. n. 27.
29 Ibid., p. 55.
30 The building became known as the Palais Brion because Duke of Amville, Earl of
Brion, for some time lived there.
31 The Palais Royal was developed in unplanned stages. The initial building commis-
sioned by Richelieu, which came to be vastly extended, was designed in 1629 as a
theatre by Jacques Lemercier. It was the first theatre in France with movable scenery
and a proscenium arch. Its first production was Jean Desmeret’s Mirame in 1641.
32 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. 2. The Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture
moved in March of the same year, also to the Louvre.
33 Bayne, St. John, The Louvre: Or, Biography of a Museum, Chapman and Hall,
London, 1855, p.32.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid., p.33.
36 The clearance of buildings and clutter that emerged during the latter half of the
eighteenth century together with the restoration process lacked any coherent plan.
 Formation of the Académie d’Architecture 49
Many who made the slightest contribution to its renovation claimed entire honour
for its restoration.
37 Mosser & Rabreau, ‘L’Académie Royale et L’Enseignement d’Architecture’, p. 48.
38 The term Architect was used in Vitruvius’ De architectura, written c.27 B.C.; how-
ever, Roman ‘architects’ were significantly different from their modern counterparts.
Vitruvius held the prevailing view of his time that architects acted as engineers,
architects, artists and artisans combined. He discusses a wide range of subjects,
which he saw as relating to architecture, including many aspects which would seem
non-obvious to modern eyes, ranging from mathematics to astronomy, to meteorol-
ogy and medicine. In the Roman conception, architecture needed to take into
account everything touching on the physical and intellectual life of man and his
surroundings. The first note of the term recorded in the Expanded Oxford English
Dictionary is in 1563 concerning John Shute. Marshe accredited Shute’s book as the
first on architecture that had been written in English. (Early Printed Books 1478–
1840: Catalogue of the British Architectural Library’s Early Imprints Collection,
compiled by Paul W. Nash, Nicholas Savage, Gerald Beasley, John Meriton and
Alison Shell.) The Expanded Oxford English Dictionary contains three definitions
for the noun Architect. In brief, these definitions are: ‘A master-builder whose busi-
ness it is to prepare the plans of edifices, and exercise a general superintendence over
the course of their erection; One who designs and frames any complex structure;
One who plans, devises, contrives or constructs, to achieve a desired result.’
39 Gallet, Michel, Paris Domestic Architecture of the Eighteenth Century, Barrie &
Jenkins, London, 1972, p. 23.
40 Ibid., p. 18.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., p. xiii.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid., p. xiv.
45 Ibid., p. 19.
46 Mosser & Rabreau, ‘L’Académie Royale et L’Enseignement d’Architecture’, p. 48.
47 Gallet, Paris Domestic Architecture of the Eighteenth Century, p. 19.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid. p. 20.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
3 The Académie’s Early Ideology

Nicolas-François Blondel’s inaugural lecture

The Académie d’Architecture was inaugurated on the 31 December 1671. (It
was to receive formal royal accreditation in May 1699; before this date, after
was officially entitled Académie Royale d’Architecture.)1 The first gathering
comprised a formal lecture by Nicolas-François Blondel on the reasons for the
existence of the Académie d’Architecture and a broad outline of its organisa-
tional structure.2 It was Colbert who suggested that a lecture be given as a
means for Blondel to introduce his ideas for the Académie.3 He started the lec-
ture by speaking on the architectural work carried out during the formative
years of the reign of Louis XIV and noted,

his Majesty, considering why sight of some buildings provides little aesthetic
delight, desires beauty to be explained and instructed to the architect/artist.4

He continued to announce that this need for more architectural understanding

and instruction was the reason for founding the Académie d’Architecture.5
Blondel’s response to the king’s challenge was to formulate a structure that
enabled the discussion on the theory of architecture with the aim of attaining
defined tenets that would guide France’s architectural future. This approach
was slightly at variance with Louis’ intended role for the Académie, which was
to establish an official system to empower architecture for the advancement of
French prestige and in turn, add to his own glory. Louis had little concern for
architecture other than the sense of power that it afforded him. Regardless,
Colbert felt that Blondel’s proposal would largely meet the king’s aspirations,
and so did not demand that the scope of study be confined to benefit only
buildings and monuments belonging to the crown. Blondel also presented a
structured timetable of meetings during his inaugural lecture to which the pre-
sent members were invited to gather.
The Membres that the king had chosen to attend the Académie were the Direc-
teur, 6 Blondel (also the school’s first Professeur), 7 a Secrétaire, 8 André Félibien
(1619–1695), and only six others – Libéral Bruand (1635–1697), Daniel Gittard
(1625–1686), Antoine Le Pautre (1621–1679?), François Le Vau (1613–1676) (brother
 The Académie’s early ideology 51
9
of Louis Le Vau), Pierre Mignard (1612–1695), and François d’Orbay. Except for
the secretary,10 these eight Membres were all architects and effectively comprised
the Académie d’Architecture.11 The meetings convened by Blondel were held every
Thursday (starting as of the following Thursday) for two hours to confer and
communicate their studies.12 Blondel would then present the gained knowledge in
the form of public lectures,13 which lasted two hours every Tuesday and Friday.14
The public lectures were free of charge and could be attended by anyone. To
encourage public attendance, Blondel also declared that ‘students’ who proved to
possess particular talent would be rewarded from time to time with a scholarship to
the legendary Académie de France à Rome.15 For the first forty-six years of the
Académie’s existence, the educational curriculum comprised little beyond this lec-
ture course. It was only gradually that there ‘emerged a “school” in the current sense
of the term: an institution where young aspirants were registered as “students”, and
where specific qualifications were needed to entice them to the special educational
privileges provided’.16 Blondel ended his peroration by saying, quite incorrectly, that
when in the Bible God threatened to punish his people for their impiety, he would
also deprive them of their architects.17
Blondel’s conception of an academy for architecture had been formulated over
several years preceding the inauguration of the Académie d’Architecture, and
many of his initial thoughts came to form the basis of his famous Cours d’Arch-
itecture: Enseigné dans l’Académie. 18 The Cours was written with the intention
to define a coherent, comprehensive set of principles for a sober, rational archi-
tecture. Blondel believed that the Académie would create a new, specifically
French architectural theory based on a selective and critical re-reading of all
previous writings on the subject. He held the view that French architects had
relied too long on a blind and uninformed opinion of architectural practice. The
intention in writing the Cours, therefore, was to guide the Académie to formulate
a definitive order of columns derived from the writings of earlier authors. In turn,
the definitive order would help produce a mature architecture that could proceed
from a basis in theory which was complete and acquainted with the history and
literature of the discipline. Thus, it was a prescriptive text that attempted to
establish rules for what should and should not be done.

The early ideology of the Académie

The studies and activities undertaken at the Académie d’Architecture were
recorded in the Minutes of the Académie by the Secrétariat of the Académie des
Beaux-Arts at the Institut de France. Between 1911 and 1929 the Minutes were
published in Henry Lemonnier’s Procès-Verbaux de l’Académie Royale d’Arch-
itecture (10 volumes). These documents form the official reports of the Acadé-
mie and, together with Blondel’s Cours, are the most detailed texts available on
the Académie. Each volume comprises an introduction followed by short
weekly Minute entries (although sporadic gaps can be found). Generally, each
Minute is a succinct factual account noting salient developments and is around
ten lines of text, although some extend to three pages such as the first entry in
52 The Académie’s early ideology
December 1671 (the full date is not given in this instance). After an introductory
chapter by Lemonnier, the vast bulk of the Procès-Verbaux record the ongoing
discussions that revolve around the Académie’s central ideological theme of
‘good taste’, with regular reference to architectural design of the time and that
of Renaissance Italy and Classical antiquity, although they are rarely discussed
in any detail. Only nine drawings can be found within the entire ten volumes,
include are mostly beautifully detailed engravings, although some are no more
than rough pen sketch.
The Procès-Verbaux start by explaining that the central aim of the Académie
was to increase the social role of the architect and the profession of architecture
as a means to enhance national pride and defend its people.19 It was deemed
that this objective would be best achieved by more fully understanding what
makes architectural form beautiful and teaching this new found knowledge to
those with the responsibility of designing buildings.20 This ambition was pri-
marily derived from two distinct sources; the first was the king who ultimately
founded the Académie, funded its functions, and continued to preside over it
and change its course with the introduction of new statutes approved often at
the whim of his appointed surintendants. It was for the glory of France and its

(a) (b)

Figure 3.1a–b Engravings, Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. 1, p. 345 [a], Vol. 2, p. LV

[b]. Examples of some of the more beautiful engraving of the Procès-
Verbaux.
 The Académie’s early ideology 53
leader that the Académie existed and it was the king’s political aspirations that
the Académie served. The second source of Académie’s ambition to better
understand architecture was Blondel himself. The lasting impact that Blondel
had on the Académie, even after his death, cannot be underestimated. Barely a
page of Lemonnier’s introduction to the Procès-Verbaux can be read without
reference to the Académie’s first director.
The first volume the Procès-Verbaux records Blondel’s weekly meetings,
which comprised mainly discussions on the most correct form of architectural
aesthetics based on rational precepts. Blondel was of the belief that it appeared
probable,

that there be in architecture a certain arrangement, number, provision and

size of part, which produces a union of harmony that one calls beauty,
which is pleasing to our senses.21

Throughout his Cours Blondel proclaims his ideological pursuit, and therefore
that of the Académie, to elicit from nature and from the ruinous remains of
ancient Italy and Greece the principles that govern their beauty.

I am never embarrassed to boldly pronounce that there exists proportions

which cause Architecture to become beautiful and elegant and which are
stable and constant principles of mathematics, so that, through meditation,
one can draw an infinite series of useful consequences and rules for the
construction of buildings.22

Blondel assumed that the logical basis of architecture would enable specific
absolute and eternally valid rules to be established. This was particularly true
of the architectural Order, which was believed to be based on God-given
human proportions and could not be improved upon by man. Blondel dedicated
the entire first volume of his Cours to the Orders to argue that there was a
model for an ‘absolute’ architecture established in Classical antiquity. However,
it was never his intention to formulate a canon of architectural proportions
merely to reinforce the greatness of what had previously been built; Blondel’s
primary concern was to realise, as best as humanly possible, God-ordained
architectural proportions, and for this new-found knowledge to forge a way for
all future architecture. When Blondel examines ancient buildings, he freely
admits that he is only concerned with important measurements, leaving it to
others (such as Antoine Desgodets’ Les Édifices Antiques de Rome, Paris, 1682)
to record the details of mouldings and ornaments. Thus, Blondel’s search for
harmonic ratios led to collections of measurements that aided in the calculation
of averages, which were often awkward numbers, mostly because ancient
architecture was not regular and inconsistent with Vitruvius’ measurements.
Like all Classicists before him, Blondel assumed that these timeless principles
are best established by studying the work of Classical antiquity and the Italian
Renaissance. The Procès-Verbaux note that in pursuit of this objective
54 The Académie’s early ideology

(a) (b)

Figure 3.2a–b Engravings, Nicolas-François Blondel, Cours d’Architecture, Vol. 1, Plate

1 [a], Plate VII [b]. Blondel dedicates the entire first volume of his Cours
to the study of the Orders and how they relate to the entablature. The
volume systematically describes each Order in chronological sequence and
uses meticulously detailed engravings to express the depth, sectional form
and profile of each element which together comprise the Order. The text
is generally overburdened with a flood of letters referring to the accom-
panying illustrations and would probably not have appealed much to the
average architect or builder. Incidentally, after further research, the Aca-
démie concluded that the Composite was not a recognised Order.

architectural Order, the outcome of the Membres’ discussions, which were led
by Blondel, was two-fold: first, that everything in good taste must please, but it
does not follow from this that everything that pleases is in good taste; and
secondly, that the touchstone of taste is ‘ce qui a toujours plu advantage aux
personnes intelligentes’, that is, persons whose merit is established by their
works or writings.23 When this was concluded the Membres deemed it wise to
formulate a list of ‘intelligent people’. The top spots were given to Marcus
Vitruvius Pollio (?–15 B.C.) (commonly known simply as ‘Vitruvius’), who was
considered the authoritative ancient thinker, and Andrea Palladio (1508–1580),
his modern equivalent.24 The superiority of these champions was decided with
unanimous agreement. However, those who were considered subservient yet
worthy of mention found less consensus. Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548–1616) and
 The Académie’s early ideology 55
Sebastiano Serlio (1475–c.1554) were next on the honours list with Barozzi Vig-
nola (1507–1573) taking third place among the Italian classicists, while de l’Orme
and Bullant were seen to continue the correct classical route in France.25 That
these giants of architecture made it on the Académie’s list of favourite architects is of
no surprise; however, more questionable judgements include the complete omission
of the great Renaissance architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446), Donato
Bramante (1444–1514), Giuliano da Sangallo (1443–1516), Baldassare Peruzzi (1481–
1536) and Michaelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475–1564).
Vitruvius occupied centre stage in the Académie’s debating chambers for the
first five years of its existence. In one of its first meetings, it pronounced unan-
imous agreement that Vitruvius was to be considered,

the first and the most learned of all architects and that he must exercise the
principal authority amongst them. His doctrine is admirable as a whole
and should be adopted without deviation and also be followed in the
greater part of its detail.26

Though they appear to have quite readily accepted the principles and notes set
out in his Les dix Livres d’Architecture, with particular relation to monuments
of ancient Rome, their judgement was later backed up by first-hand studies.27
These studies involved measured surveys and copious note writing, often with
personal opinions, in which some opposed the theories of the ancient master
himself. Other historical architectural celebrities who received the privileged
scrutiny of the Académie were measured by the degree to which they showed
allegiance to either Vitruvius or ancient monuments. Palladio was accredited for
having ‘rather exact intentions to emulate antique examples’ while Serlio was
commended for adhering to ‘the intentions of the majority of antique works’.
Conversely, even the most highly regarded architects and theorists were
attacked if the Membres felt that they had deviated from Vitruvius. Serlio was
later criticised for his ‘strange inventions’ while even Palladio was accused of
creating ‘defects against the doctrines’.28
When the Académie was first formed, the difficulties that the Membres
experienced in distilling the perfect Order and grasping the most correct archi-
tectural proportions were initially exacerbated by their naive acquaintance with
historic architecture. The Procès-Verbaux indicate that the Académie had a
limited understanding of ancient Greece and Rome, and less still of the Italian
Renaissance. Lemonnier writes in his notes that the academicians had only a
vague knowledge of the eras that they so highly respected.

Where did it start, where finished it? Which countries did it embrace? Italy
alone or Greece and Italy? On all these points, they were extremely badly
informed. They did not know anything of the true Greek orders and no
more than what was widely known at their time on true Greek art. How-
ever, they had the feeling that there were differences between Roman and
Greek architectures. They also intuitively thought that the Composite was
56 The Académie’s early ideology
not an Order, It is false to say that the former Greeks had five orders since,
in the time of Vitruvius, they knew only the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian
Orders; the Tuscan Order, though old, was only applied in Italy.29

The cost and time involved in travelling to sites of ancient ruins and the
relatively sparse number of written accounts on historic architecture that exis-
ted meant that the Membres knew little more than what was generally under-
stood by most architects of the time. It was perhaps this deficiency in the
Académie’s knowledge that led Claude Perrault to publish a version of Vitru-
vius’ Les Dix Livres d’Architecture de Vitruve, corrigez et traduits nouvellement
en François in 1673, which effectively replaced Vitruvius’s original text as the
main source of authority for the architectural profession. Perrault had been
commissioned to produce a new translation of the text in 1666 with a detailed
critical commentary. Vitruvius’s book had been regarded as the foremost and
only substantial authority on architecture from ancient times, yet it was often
easily misunderstood and prone to misinterpretation. Because the Académie
relied on it so heavily, it is no surprise that Perrault’s new translation became
an immediate focus of attention.

(a) (b)

Figure 3.3a–b Engravings, Claude Perrault, Les Dix Livres d’Architecture, inside cover
[a] & p. 154 [b]. The collection of many beautiful engravings throughout
Perrault’s book drew a wide audience of appreciative readers. Further-
more, the illustrations were incredibly accurate such as the Basilica of
Fano (right), which depicts the likely construction technique of the
ancient building. The Basilica at Fano (in the province of Pesaro on the
Adriatic coast of Italy) is the only building to have been designed and
built by Vitruvius.
 The Académie’s early ideology 57
The ensuing work, however, was not what the Académie had expected. Per-
rault had suggested in his commentary that there could not be any ground on
which to form absolute rules for the correct proportioning of architectural ele-
ments and that society was responsible for deciding what was to be considered
‘good taste’. Given that this concept was in very opposition to the founding
aims and aspirations of the Académie, it is no surprise that the new publication
triggered a scandal that formed the basis of the great debate between the pro-
ponents of the Anciens and the Modernes. The problematic relationship
between the Académie and Perrault never cleared, and the Académie was quick
to criticise anything that Perrault designed. In 1685 the normally succinct Min-
utes delivered a prolonged attack on a design for a triumphal arch by Perrault
and even included an engraving to add weight. The Académie complained that
the columns would be ‘better suited to a gallery or a façade of a large house
rather than a triumphant arch’ and continued to note that the ‘ornaments above
the small gates, although exquisite, are too many, one upon the other, and are
somewhat petty compared with the work as a whole’.
Only three years after the publication of Perrault’s book, the focus of attention
shifted to the writings of Scamozzi who emphasised the relationship between the
human form and beautiful architectural proportion.30 Scamozzi was a prominent
architect in the Veneto region and was also famed for writing his Idea della
architettura universale; the twelve-volume treatise took over 25 years according
to Scamozzi himself (later reduced to ten volumes). It appeared initially in 1615 in
Venice and quickly formed the standard reference work on column orders and
building proportions. The treatise was the result of extensive research by Sca-
mozzi on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian published texts in addition to
others in both French and German. He also studied the writings of Greek authors
(particularly Aristotle, Plato and Euclid), and several Latin works including Pliny
and Cicero. The presentation of his own architectural designs that were either
not built or built with substantial alterations also formed a valuable contribution
to the treatise, particularly volumes II and III. The overriding theme of Sca-
mozzi’s Idea was that architecture was to be regarded as a universal science that
embraces the full extents of society. This proclamation is derived from the neo-
Platonic idea of a geometrically ordered cosmos. Scamozzi intended his Idea to
explain the connection between abstract principles that govern the process of
design and the concept and completion of individual works. Despite the vast
extent of the work and its enormous collection of beautiful hand-drawn sketches,
this aim was far from conclusive; thus, interest in Scamozzi’s texts was short-
lived, and the focus of conversation at the Académie soon revolved around a
collection of volumes by Philibert de l’Orme where it remained until 1678. De
l’Orme was made Surintendant des Bâtiments in 1547, though it was on his
demotion from the position that he wrote Le premier tome de l’architecture. Like
Scamozzi’s magnum opus, the nine-volumes of treatise was heavily inspired by
Vitruvius’ De architecture libri decem. 31
After 1678 the Académie’s allegiance to Vitruvius gradually changed from
one of pure unquestionable devotion to respectfulness of an imperfect skilled
58 The Académie’s early ideology
author of ancient architecture. In 1681 the Académie approved the changes
Palladio had made to Vitruvius’s proportions.32 By 1683 Blondel openly criti-
cised architects who relied too heavily on Vitruvius and did not appreciate the
‘beautiful examples that they had before their eyes’.33 As more ancient monu-
ments were surveyed, it became apparent that the proportions of these edifices
neither related to each other, nor with those presented by Vitruvius. In Sep-
tember 1674 Antoine Desgodets (1653–1728) visited Rome as a Pensionnaire of
the Académie with the task to survey and draw exact measurements of ancient
buildings. The ensuing work, known as the Les Édifices Antiques de Rome, was
published 1682. It became the most comprehensive collection of surveyed
ancient monuments of the time, and the quality of finish was extraordinary.

He measured the buildings just as they stood without any attempt at

restoration, incorporating as many details as possible, the whole under-
taking being carried out with a degree of thoroughness and accuracy never
before known.34

Not only were the engravings a delight to the eye, but they were also very
detailed and surveyed at an incredible speed. Subsequent modern surveys have
also verified their impeccability accuracy. The surveys demonstrated that build-
ings of ancient Rome not only varied from the proportional systems purported by
Vitruvius, Palladio and others, but also highlighted apparent errors in the mea-
surement of ancient buildings that had been presented by Blondel to his students
since 1672; Herrmann argues that this is the primary cause for Blondel’s hostility
towards Desgodets’ work and why the Académie barely cites the drawings until
1693 when its attitude ‘suddenly changed’, for reasons not explained.35
In retrospect, it is curious how the matters of entablature proportions or the
style of bases, profiles, sizes, the correct use of mouldings and other principles
could occupy the minds of the group for so many years. At the same time, the
possibilities are inexhaustible. Should the column be inflated at the centre or
thinned higher up the stem? How are grooves made, to what depth, or what
diameter? How is the ionic volute drawn? Which process, or which method
must one employ to obtain the most elegant drawing? One primary example,
the relationship between an entablature and a column, is portrayed in Herr-
mann’s Antoine Desgodets and the Académie Royale d’Architecture, which
outlines the detailed level of discussions held at the Académie.

The pilaster, because it is not normally diminished, is wider and also

deeper in its upper section than the column of which diminution is the
salient and invariable feature. As soon as column and pilaster are placed in
alignment, difficulties arise in placing the entablature correctly; that is to
say, in such a way that the face of the architrave is in line with the face of
the upper part of the column or pilaster. There were three main ways to
overcome the difficulty. One was to diminish the pilaster in the same way
as the column. There were antique precedents for this and it was also
 The Académie’s early ideology 59
accepted by the Italian architects of the sixteenth century in practice and in
theory. The French school of the second half of the seventeenth century
objected to it more and more on the ground that it was against the nature
of the pilaster to imitate the lines of the round column, in addition to the
fact that the edges of the pilaster would unpleasantly exaggerate and distort
the graceful curvature of the column. The second solution was not to
diminish the pilaster but to make a projection in the entablature, thus let-
ting it follow, as it were, the deeper outline of the pilaster. This, of course,
had been done frequently not only in the antique but on an increasing scale
during the development of the Mannerist and Baroque styles. The leaning
towards classic restraint made the French architects strongly opposed to the
solution. The third answer to the problem was to permit the entablature to
be in line with only one of the members, either column or pilaster. This
was disliked by the French school because the entablature then showed
either a too pronounced recess over the pilaster or, much worse, a porte- à-
faux over the column.36

The column/entablature problem was ‘formally’ resolved on 29 November

1700 when the Surintendant (possibly because he was bored with the ensuing
discussion) ‘confirmed their deliberations’.37

The method recommended to the Academy to circumvent all the inherent

difficulties was to diminish the pilaster by a half or a third of the diminu-
tion of the column and to place the entablature in such a way that the effect
of the remaining difference in diminution between the column and the
pilaster was ‘split’, that is to say, the entablature was carried slightly porte-
à-faux over the column and slightly recessed over the pilaster. In short, the
purpose of this solution was to make the contradictions as imperceptible as
possible, a solution which was in perfect harmony with the general trend of
French architecture around 1700.38

Herrmann recounts that the process of reading one treatise after another on
apparently mundane and minute variations can leave modern readers believing
that the Académie was slow to progress and esoteric. However, in defence of
the Membres, he notes,

… these often minute variations were considered to be important noticed by

those who had been visually and intellectually trained in the differentiation
of the so-called good and bad taste. Only by following up these observations
and by going into very small and seemingly petty differences is it possible to
reach an appraisal of the strangely keen interest that most architects of the
seventeenth and eighteenth century took in this branch of their art.39

Colbert and the autocratic system of academicism that evolved during the
Académie’s formative years demanded the emerging body of knowledge be
60 The Académie’s early ideology
treated as authoritative treatises. Colbert yearned for order, systematic reg-
ularity and especially subordination. Therefore, once authority had been estab-
lished, the Membres were expected to strictly adhere to its teaching. However,
by 1681 the Académie had become increasingly uncomfortable with its quest for
‘good taste’, and the whole topic was overhauled.40 The quest to establish an
exact and exhaustive instruction on ‘good’ or ‘tasteful’ architecture based on
the works and thoughts of past architects proved to be a thankless task. Col-
bert’s intervention led to a reinvigorated quest to resort to pre-established texts
such as Vitruvius’ Les Dix Livres d’Architecture. However, it was not until
1689 that the first account of any ‘fixing’ of specific rules was recorded.41 From
4 February to 1 September 1689 the Procès-Verbaux referred to a collection of
official drawings that had been drafted to show the agreed ‘divisions and mea-
surements’, although these drawings do not form part of Lemonnier’s account,
and it is unknown where these drawings are kept today, if at all they still exist.
The definition as recorded in the Procès-Verbaux was at best flimsy and notes
the Membres’ ‘hope’ for existing correlations between the natural world and
architectural principles. Blondel is cited to report that the Membres had agreed:

… though many details of architecture are arbitrary, and please us only

because they occur in the works of men whom we respect, it is probable
that there is in architecture a certain numerical arrangement and propor-
tion which results in the harmony which we call beauty, and which is
analogous to harmony in music.42

What had started as an optimistic quest to define good architecture by its

adherence to correct Classical principles, morphed into a much less challenging
pursuit during the latter quarter of the seventeenth century, to encourage
architecture that is suitable for the purpose it was designed to perform.

Studies and activities undertaken at the Académie

The first major project that Colbert instructed the Académie to undertake was
in 1678 when Membres were required to survey and document all ancient Par-
isian churches and buildings of note.43 He requested that each building was to
be inspected for its type of stone, the quarry from which it derived, and condi-
tion of the stonework. This one task, which included a mammoth tour of the
quarries around the Jura mountains along the east French border with Swit-
zerland, particularly in the Geneva area, took the Membres three months.44
During this period all other lectures and study sessions were postponed.
To imply, however, that the Membres were little more than surveyors of the
work of previous architects or merely deliberated on the writings of past mas-
ters would be to ignore their ability to act as the king’s architectural think-tank.

They were practical men who knew their business, and perfectly under-
stood, as the literary man never had understood, what architecture sets out
 The Académie’s early ideology 61
to do, what are its conditions and limitations, what are the mental pro-
cesses inseparably connected with its practice. They dealt with their
authorities faithfully with reference to modern architecture, and wherever
possible checked their statements by actual measurements. In a discussion
on modern bridges Blondel supplies an example of one at Cismon in Italy,
between Trent and Bassano, with a span of sixteen fathoms, and another at
Narva, in Livonia, on the Gulf of Finland. Both Blondel and Mignard (the
architect) checked Palladio’s statements by their own notes made at Rome,
and criticize severely certain elements of his designs.45

The Membres were also well versed in the practical workings of architecture
and often advised on matters of detailing. The Procès-Verbaux frequently record
discussions on the quality of stone, sands, cement, the best way to provide foun-
dations, the properties of timber, structural elements, and construction methods
such as vaults. On the technical expertise of the Académie Blomfield notes:

All the members were practising architects, and whatever the writers might
say, they knew when the actual difficulties of design began. … Throughout
their discussions the point of view on practice was always present to their
minds. They dealt with the composition of mortar, the use of cramps for
masonry, the proper seasoning of stone, seldom attended to in their time,
as the Academy points out, because everyone was in such a rush to
build. … In regard to masonry, and with an eye to the immense building
operations then in progress, the Academy advised that large stones should
be “polished” (worked smooth) on their upper and under surface and laid
dry, or on thin sheets of lead kept back 4 or 5 in. from the face, because it
was found that mortar did not adhere equally to the beds of stone beyond a
certain size, with the result of uneven bearings.46

In addition to being consulted on practical matters, the Académie was also tasked
with designing elements of or whole buildings.47 Examples include the request to
design a hospital at Saint-Brieuc, and offer advice on temporary coverings to the
Cathedral of Bayeux, which had suffered fire damage to a significant part of its
roof.48 In 1678 the Pères Feuillans requested that the Académie provide the design
of their church front façade on the Rue St. Honoré, Paris.49 The Académie com-
missioned one of its Membres, Libéral Bruand, to carry out the work and the
Académie collectively approved and submitted the design.
Another function that the Académie performed was one of a legal arbiter. In
June 1678, Antoine Le Pautre and his brother Jean, the engraver, disagreed on the
repair of a house and the matter was referred to the Académie, who in turn deci-
ded against the engraver. The wide range of services provided by the Académie did,
however, have its limits. Matters of legal rights of way, party wall issues and rights
to light were among many issues considered too menial for the Académie.
Though the Académie had lost some credibility by failing to provide an
answer to the debate on good taste, acting as an advisory body for all types of
62 The Académie’s early ideology
construction and detailing matters redeemed its reputation. However, given that
so many have attempted, and failed, to define good taste conclusively, it seems
hard to expect that the Académie could bring closure to the story, even if this
were one of the primary reasons for its existence.
In the last two years of Blondel’s directorship, the Académie gave most of its
attention to the design and construction of bridges. Though Bruand and Gittard had
submitted various bridge proposals to the Académie in 1683, it was Pierre Bullet’s
(1639–1716) design for a bridge at la Ferté sous Jouarre in 1685 and the discussion
on the viability of it moving to Nantes over the Loire that started an interest in
bridge design. The move towards an interest in structure and science at the Acadé-
mie was encouraged by Blondel’s successor, Gabriel-Philippe de La Hire (1687–
1718) who took the role of Professeur from 1687 to 1718. Under La Hire, the pri-
mary function of the Académie shifted from advising on constructional issues to
designing bridges and commenting on the structural performance of buildings.
However, this shift was soon accompanied by a more general interest in whether a
building or structure was suitable for the purpose it was to perform. This measure
of the building’s appropriateness effectively replaced the Membres’ quest for ‘good
taste’ and became the standard by which a building was deemed ‘good’ or not.
Furthermore, the Académie was not shy in exerting its authority when fitness was
seen to be absent, especially on those who clashed with its ideas on beauty.
The activities of the Académie varied considerably during its existence; how-
ever, its ideology remained generally rationalistic, and it always presented itself
with an air of authority, believing that its wisdom should never be questioned. In
effect, Louis XIV and the Académie practised an unwritten agreement. In return
for the Académie submitting to royal and ministerial Patrons, it was permitted to
proclaim its gained knowledge with unwavering confidence and conviction as
though it were a regal spokesman. With the weight of royal backing, the Acadé-
mie was intolerant of anyone who questioned its self-proclaimed wisdom and
therefore, except for a few progressives such as Perrault, it remained unchal-
lenged until the rise of antimonarchic sentiment during the Revolution. However,
the fundamental impediment with the relationship between state and Académie
stemmed from the state’s requirement for routine and uncompromising principles
of design, an impingement that severely hampered innovation at the Académie.
The Académie constrained itself to work within the limits of a preconceived
understanding of the Classical Order and generally avoided a more progressive
approach to architectural design. Consequently, regardless of the successive
ornamental fashions that cloaked architecture during the late seventeenth century
and throughout the eighteenth century, the Membres of the Académie generally
showed little ambition to deviate from fundamental design principles.

50
Académie Membres
The most influential member of the Académie d’Architecture during its for-
mative years was Blondel. During his service in the army, Blondel designed
fortifications from 1635 to 1652. On return to civilian life, he set out on a tour
 The Académie’s early ideology 63
of Europe as tutor to a well-born youth. Returning in 1655, he became a lec-
turer in mathematics and military science at the Collége Royale, but was fre-
quently absent on diplomatic missions. In 1664 he fortified the Atlantic ports of
France, and in 1666 accompanied a naval expedition to the Antilles.51 He also
authored a course on mathematics, a treatise on bombs, a book on the
mechanism of clocks, and a history of the Roman calendar. Indeed, his non-
architectural achievements appear to outshine his appointment at the Académie
d’Architecture. He is reputed to have considered himself as Galileo’s last dis-
ciple; studied alongside Pascal, Descartes and Hobbes; accompanied Gassendi
during his experiments on the vacuum; plotted the phases of an eclipse at the
court of the king of Denmark; and presented his observations on local plants
and animals on return from the Antilles to fellows in the Académie des Sci-
ences. Blondel’s mathematical work has been studied by Christiaan Huygens
(1629–1695), Frans van Schooten (1615–1660), Vincenzo Viviani (1622–1703),
Robert Hooke (1635–1703), Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) and Isaac Newton
(1642–1726); however, in the history of architectural theory, Blondel is most
famed for his conservative stance in the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes,
with the Perrault brothers as his primary adversary.
The group of eight architectural academicians, who were chosen by the king to be
the initial Membres, were hierarchically much more important than other experi-
enced architects. New Membres hereafter were almost always chosen from the stu-
dents that studied at the school, and particular attention was often drawn towards
winners of the Grand Prix. During the twenty-eight years that followed the selection
of the initial eight Membres their total number did not vary, and only twelve new
Membres were elected on the retirement or death of an existing member; thus, new
Membres joined one at a time, (with the exception of 1678 and 1687 when three and
two Membres were elected respectively).52 On 7 January 1699 Jules-Hardouin
Mansart (1646–1708)53 was appointed Surintendant des Bâtiments, and on 12 Feb-
ruary of that year, he increased the number of Membres to seventeen before dividing
them into two groups.54 The première classe consisted of seven architects, a pro-
fessor (Blondel) and a secretary (Félibien). The seconde classe also comprised seven
architects, (although their number increased to ten in May 1699,)55 and a professor
(Le Hire).56 A third class was also formed comprising officers in charge of the king’s
buildings who could attend meetings of the Académie, but who were not Académi-
ciens. 57 With this change also came official royal accreditation of the Académie in
the following May and it was for the first time known as the Académie Royale
d’Architecture.58 A decree dated June 1699 records the king’s desire to,

… confirmer l’établissement de l’Académie d’architecture. Qui en a été

projeté et résolu dès l’anée 1671, à l’instar des autres Academies. … Depuis
ce temps, ceux qui ont été jugés dignes d’être admis dans cette Académie,
en qualité de nos architects, ont obtenu des brevets. 59

Under another decree in 1717, instigated by the Directeur des Bâtiments, 60 Louis
de Pardaillan de Gondrin (the first duke of Antin) (1640–1691) brought the
64 The Académie’s early ideology
number of Membres to twenty-four.61 This decree also introduced a new Mem-
bres’ selection process. To date, the king named the Membres of the Académie,
however, the decree of 1717 enabled the Académie to submit a list of up to three
names to the king from which he chose a new member.62 The only other decrees
that affected the number of Membres were enacted in 1728 and 1756, though
these were far less reaching than the decrees of 1699 and 1717. In 1728, a further
eight positions for Membres of the seconde classe were created.63
Curiously, the Procès-Verbaux avoid recording the death of its Membres or
Surintendants. Although the death of Blondel is acknowledged, it is only in
relation to a question of teaching. On 23 January 1686, two days after Blondel
died the official report reads:

… Et comme elle s’est assemblée (la Compagnie) ce jourd’huy particu-

lièrement, sur la nouvelle qu’elle a eue de la mort de M. Blondel, arrivée le
21e de ce mois, elle a remis au premier jour pour voir si elle n’aura rien à
délibérer à cette occasion. 64

The administration and management of the Académie was pyramidal with the
apex in reality, as well as in theory, being the king. The king’s power was
exercised through a hierarchy of state secretaries and councillors at the City
Centre and an efficient body of Intendants in the provinces. In this way, an
almost uniform system dependant on central authority was imposed on all
academic activities throughout France. The highest-ranking state secretary was
the Surintendant des Bâtiments, a managerial official nominated by the king
overseeing properties that belonged to the nation.65
The Surintendant des Bâtiments effectively controlled the Académie by regulat-
ing the provision of both accommodation and the Membres’ comfortable salary,
which were ultimately supplied by the king. By far the most important, extensive
and complete record of Académie’s finances (and other French academies) is
documented within the Comptes des Bâtiments du Roi, which is an account of the
financial expenditure during the reign of Louis XIV.66 This account contains all
spending on royal buildings, gardens, the arts and manufacturing in France. Its
entries range from the enormous costs of royal châteaux to the wages of eminent
employees of the academies and even smaller salaries of the officials. Blomfield
even notes that the fee for mole catchers at the grounds of Versailles is recorded.67
Jules Guiffery prepared a transcript of the large department’s work, which is
highly praised by Blomfield; indeed, the ordinarily succinct writer dedicates half a
page to Guiffery’s study.68 However, Meynell, who has investigated Guiffery’s
transcript in detail and referred back to the original department’s documents to
research the finances of the Académie des Sciences, outlines a substantial list of
inaccuracies, defects and poor organisational techniques.69
Membres of the Académie were paid from state funds eleven livres per
meeting.70 Among other privileges that were bestowed to Membres was the
right to the title Architecte du Roi as of 7 March 1767 until 1776.
 The Académie’s early ideology 65
With regard to what has been presented to the King … namely, that several
master masons, entrepreneurs and other persons involved with buildings
now without any right whatsoever make so bold as to assume the title of
architects of the King, in order to win credit for themselves and, by means
of this title, present plans, construct every sort of building, both public and
private, which for the most part prove to be very defective because of the
shortcomings of the abovementioned masons and entrepreneurs … His
Majesty the King has expressly forbad all entrepreneurs … to assume the
title of architect if the King, apart from those whom His Majesty has
chosen to form a part of his Academy of Architecture.71

The title Architecte du Roi carried an annual salary of 500 livres, a comfor-
table salary for the work of the time.72 However, one condition of an election
was that the architects must ‘reside in Paris, to be able to attend the weekly
meetings. Hence other architects were unrecognised, especially those who lived
in the provinces.’73 A decree in March 1676 forbad anyone other than a member
of the Académie to assert the title and stated a penalty of 1000 livres for its
misuse. The decree was unmistakably aimed towards the master masons and
other guild members who had also assumed ownership of the title.

Notes
1 Initially, the Académie was not officially recognised. The French Parliament did not
ratify the Académie until a decree in 1717; hence the decree was entitled ‘Lettres
patentes portent establishment dune Académie d’Architecture’. A statement that
recognised the unofficial existence of the Académie and Parliament’s desire to rectify
the situation followed the title. Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol.I., p. LXX.
2 Ibid., p. VIII.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 The Directeurs of the Académie d’Architecture from its inception in 1672 until its
suppression in 1793 were:
1672–1686
Nicolas-François Blondel (1618–1685)
1687–1736
Robert de Cotte (1656–1735)
1736–1743
Jacques Gabriel (1667–1742)
1743–1782
Ange-Jacques Gabriel (1698–1782)
1783–1793
Richard Mique (1728–1794)
7 The Professeurs of the Académie d’Architecture from its inception in 1672 until its
suppression in 1793 were:
1672–1686
Nicolas-François Blondel (1618–1685)
1687–1718
Philippe de La Hire (1640–1718)
66 The Académie’s early ideology
1718–1719
Gabriel-Philippe de La Hire (son of Philippe) (1677–1719)
1720–1728
Antoine Desgodets (1653–1728)
1728–1730
François Bruand (1674–1739)
1730
Jean-Baptiste Leroux (1677–1746)
1730–1739
Jean Courtonne (1671–1739)
1730–1768
Abbé Charles-Étienne-Louis Camus (1699–1768)*
1739–1748
Denis Jossenay (1685–1748)
1748–1763
Louis-Adam Loriot (1700–1767)
1762–1774
Jacques-François Blondel (1705–1774)
1768–1793
Antoine-Charles Mauduit (1731–1815)*
1774–1793
Julien-David Leroy (1728–1803)**
1777–1793
Charles Bossut (1730–1814)***
1792–1793
? Rieux ****
* Professeur de géométrie appliquée
** Appointed Ajunct Professeur in 1762.
*** Professeur de d’hydrodynamique
**** Professeur de stéréotomie
8 The Secrétaires of the Académie d’Architecture from its inception in 1672 until its
suppression in 1793 were:
1671–1695
André Félibieu (1619–1695)
1702–1717
Antoine François Prévost d’Exiles (Abbé Prévost) (1697–1763)
1718–1733
Jean-François Félibieu (son of André) (1658–1733).
1733–1768
Abbé Charles-Étienne-Louis Camus (1699–1768)
1768–1793
Mechel-Jean Sédaine (1719–1797).
9 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. IX. Colbert, who remained the minister with
oversight of all the Académies, also attended the lecture.
10 André Félibien was given the title ‘d’Historiographe du Roy’. Lemonnier, Procès-
Verbaux, Vol. I, p. XVII.
11 Ibid., p. IX. Blondel described these men as, ‘bon nombre de sujujets, qui ont esté
choisis comme les plus capables dans cet art, tant parmy ceux qui en faisoient pro-
fession qu’ailleurs’.
12 Ibid., p. 2.
13 Ibid., p. XVI.
14 Ibid., pp. VIII–IX, & 2. As it transpired, the days on which meetings were held
sometimes changed to account for the busy schedules of the members, and during
 The Académie’s early ideology 67
August, September and November meetings were often cancelled completely. Ibid., p.
XV.
15 Ibid., p. IX. However, disagreements that soon followed between the Membres
themselves and various Surintendants des Bâtiments which thwarted this intention
for many years.
16 Collins, Peter, ‘The Eighteenth Century Origins of our System of Full-Time Archi-
tectural Schooling’, Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 33, No. 2, Nov, 1979, p. 2.
17 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. XI.
18 Ibid., p. X. Blondel’s Cours was published in 5 volumes between 1675 and 1683. A
second edition was published in 1698. The volumes have been recently reprinted in 6
volumes (in facsimile). Jean-Marie Perugia de Montclos has added an introduction
and an index.
19 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. XXII.
20 Ibid., p. VIII.
21 Ibid., p. LVIII.
22 Blondel, Cours d’Architecture, Vol. V, p. 771.
23 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. LVIII.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid., p. 6. (4 February 1672).
27 Blondel and Mignard visited Rome in 1671. Ibid.
28 Ibid., p. LX. (Also see September 1677.)
29 Ibid., p. LIX.
30 Alexander Grönert notes, ‘Book I explains the status of architecture as a science and
deals with the training of architects, Book II deals with geographical and topo-
graphical conditions of architecture. Book III deals with private buildings, Book IV
with public buildings, and in Book VI Scamozzi presents his theory about the orders
of columns. Books VII, VIII and IX are devoted to building materials, the building
process and the final decorative work, while Book X deals with the alterations and
restoration of buildings.’ Grönert, Alexander, ‘Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548–1616)’, in
Architectural Theory from the Renaissance to the Present, Taschen, Cologne, 2003.
Book V was on the matter of sacred buildings, but together with Books IV, IX and
X, it was never published. It was Book VI that had the most profound influence on
the Académie d’Architecture when it was finally published in French in 1685.
31 Karl Kremeier notes, ‘Book I explores the relationship between client and architect,
site selection and the issues to be considered concerning climate and building mate-
rial. Book II addresses the basics of geometry, surveying building sites, and con-
structing the foundations. Books III and IV constitute the most individual
contribution by de l’Orme, being devoted to the stone-cutting and stereometry issues
so vital to architecture; Book III looks at the cutting and insertion of stones while
Book IV addresses more complicated forms such as arches, vaults and steps. The
column orders are divided between Books V and VI. Below the illustrations in the
later books, the author inserted numerous measurements of his own from his time in
Rome, some of which elude the definitions: Doric, Tuscan and Ionic in Book V,
Corinthian in Book VI, while the Composite order together with the French order
developed by de l’Orme feature in Book VII. Book VIII is devoted to doors, door-
frames and window-frames, and Book IX to fireplaces.’ Kremeier, Karl, ‘Philibert de
l’Orme (1514–1570)’, in Architectural Theory from the Renaissance to the Present,
Taschen, Cologne, 2003.
32 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. 315.
33 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 42.
34 Herrmann, Wolfgang, ‘Antoine Desgodets and the Académie Royale d’Architecture’,
in The Art Bulletin, Vol. 40, No. 1, March 1958, p. 24.
35 Ibid., pp. 25–6.
68 The Académie’s early ideology
36 Ibid., p. 45.
37 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. III, p. 106.
38 Herrmann, ‘Antoine Desgodets and the Académie Royale d’Architecture’, p. 46.
39 Ibid., p. 37.
40 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. 310.
41 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 174–82.
42 Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 312–22.
43 Ibid., Vol. I, p. XXVII.
44 From July to September 1678 the Membres of the Académie visited the quarries of
St. Leu, Ecouen of Trossi, Pontoise, St. Cloud, Meudon, Charenton, Vitry, St. Ger-
main-en Laye, Vernon, Gaillon, Pont de Larche and Rouen. From Rouen, the
Membres travelled along the Seine to return to Paris, reporting on various quarries
as they passed them. A draft report was prepared during November. See Blomfield, A
History of French Architecture, Vol. 1, p. 18.
45 Ibid., p. 15.
46 Ibid., pp. 14–15.
47 See Chapter 6.
48 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. LVI.
49 Ibid.
50 For a full list of Membres throughout the history of the Académie d’Architecture, see
Appendix 1.
51 Briggs, Martin S., ‘Review of Nicolas-Francois de Blondel, Ingénieur et Architecte du
Roi (1618–86) by Prof. M. Mauclaire & C. Vigoreux’, The Burlington Magazine for
Connoisseurs, Vol. 73, no. 427 (October 1938), p. 188.
52 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, p. 129.
53 Great nephew of François Mansart who educated him in architecture.
54 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. XII. At this time the members included: Jac-
ques-Jules Gabriel, Colbert, Pierre Lampart, l’Asurance Cailleteau, Armand-Claude
Mollet, Mansard-DeLisle, LeMaistre (son), J.-B. Bullet (son), Cochery, Jacques
Brund (son), Pierre Gittard. Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts,
p. 129.
55 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. XII.
56 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, pp. 128–131.
57 For a record of the academic Membres in 1699 see, ibid., p. 129, and Blomfield, A
History of French Architecture, Vol. 1, p. 21.
58 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. XIII.
59 Ibid.
60 After J.-H. Mansart died in 1708 the title Surintendant des Bâtiments was abolished
and the work divided between a Directeur des Bâtiments, a Minister of Fine Arts
(D’Antin), and an Intendant des Bâtiments or principal architect (De Cotte).
61 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, p. 128.
62 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. XIII. It is likely that this move towards the
Académie managing itself happened because the Académie Royale de Peinture et de
Sculpture already had the right to recruit its own académiciens. Ibid., p. XVI.
63 Ibid., p. XIII.
64 Ibid., p. LIV.
65 The king’s Surintendant des Bâtiments, who was tasked with overseeing the Acadé-
mie d’Architecture are as follows:
1672
Jean-Bapitiste Colbert (1619–1683)*
1683
François Michel Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois (1641–1691)
1691
Édouard Colbert, Marquis de Villacerf (1628–1699)
 The Académie’s early ideology 69
1699
Joules Hardouin-Mansart (1646–1708)**, ***
1708
Louis-Antoine de Pardaillan de Gondrim, Due d’Antin (1665–1736)
1736
Philibert Orry (1689–1747)*
1746
Charles François Paul de Le Normand de Tournehem (1684–1751)
1751
Abel- François Poissen de Vandières, Marquis de Marigny (1727–1781)
1774
Charles Claude Flahaut de La Billarderie, Comte d’Aiguillon (1730–1809)
* Also the Minister of Finance
** Also the First Architect.
*** Blomfield observes that after the death of Mansart the post was abolished and
the work divided between a Directeur des Bâtiments, a Minister of Fine Arts
(D’Antin), and an Intendant des Bâtiments or principal architect (De Cotte).
(Many sources contain variations.)
66 The account is in five volumes. The sections that relate to the Académie Royale
d’Architecture are 1929–1933. One edition of the original official report is preserved
at the library of the Institute of France.
67 Blomfield, A History of French Architecture, Vol. 1, p. XVIII.
68 Ibid., pp. XVIII–XIX.
69 Blomfield published A History of French Architecture, Vol. 1 in 1921 at which time
only the accounts recorded during the reign of Louis XIV had been published (in
1881). Subsequently, it appears that the Centre Historique des Archives Nationales
published the complete set for viewing. It is possible that with this additional benefit
Maynell has been able to make a more accurate assessment of Guiffery’s transcript.
See, Meynell, G., The French Academy of Sciences, 1666-91: A Reassessment of the
French Académie Royale des Sciences under Colbert (1666–83) and Louvois (1683–
91), Haven House, Dover, 2002.
70 Blomfield cites Comptes des Bâtiments du Roi, pp. 648, 781, 787, 790, 1086. In 1672
the amount for six months was 1,825 livres; in 1679, 2,618 livres; in 1676, 1,628
livres. In 1678 when the Membres were inspecting buildings and quarries, the total
was 4,235 livres.
71 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. 109.
72 Lemonnier notes that the Académie Royale d’Architecture, Académie Française and
Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture together were issued with 30,000L per annum
from 1673 to 1679, which went up to 40,000L in 1680. Membres of the Académie
were accounted with 1,815L per six months in 1672, 2,618L in 1674 & 1,628L in 1676
for assisting with the lectures. In 1678, the Membres accounted for 4,235L due to a
field trip to record various monuments. Ibid., Vol. 1, p. XVII.
73 Collins, ‘The Eighteenth Century Origins of our System of Full-Time Architectural
Schooling’, p. 2.
4 The School of the Académie

Teaching at the school under Nicolas-François Blondel

Of all the French academies that were formed during the seventeenth century,
only the Académie d’Architecture and Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture
provided public lectures in addition to the private meetings of the Membres.
Until 1717 lectures given by the architectural académie were open to the public
and were free of charge.1 Until this time the school’s activities amounted to
little more than the Membres’ lectures. The subjects that were taught at the
Académie prior to 1717 revolve around, ‘les règles les plus hustes et les plus
correctes de l’architecture’.2 However, Blondel notes explicitly that the second
hour of the public lectures was to comprise scientific and mathematical subjects
which the king deemed essential to the well-rounded education of an architect.
The subjects included arithmetic, geometry, mechanics, kinetic forces, hydrau-
lics, military architecture, fortification, perspective and stone cutting.3
Blondel’s well-honed inaugural lecture, which briefly mentioned the desire to
school students, gave the distinct impression that some form of curriculum had
been prepared and was ready for execution. As it transpired, the educational
system presented to students who attended the Académie, particularly during its
early years, lacked a coherent syllabus and was delivered by numerous Mem-
bres (guest speakers were on occasion also invited) who often introduced their
personal preoccupations. The sometimes-unrelated collection of lecture topics
often only loosely fell under the auspices of Blondel’s original scientific and
mathematical subject headings. The arbitrary nature of the training system was
in reality far removed from Colbert’s desire for the Académie to present an
official architectural doctrine. The inconsistent programme of study can also be
seen by the absence of any recognised qualification or diploma.
To compound the lack of an educational syllabus employed at the Académie
the principal focus of the school varied in line with the philosophical tendencies
of the different directors. Under Blondel’s directorship (from 1672 to 1686) or
Desgodets (from 1720 to 1728) for example, an emphasis was placed on the
‘study of the modern principles of construction, weight measurement [toise] and
of custom’.4 From 1774 to 1793, with Julien-David Leroy (1728–1803) as
 The school of the Académie 71
Directeur, the history of architecture and archaeology became the priority, and
there was much less concern for the Orders.
Mosser & Rabreau note that student names were not recorded prior to
1745.5 Lemonnier also notes that the only record of students hereafter derives
from a list of those who were chosen by the Surintendant to study at Rome.
However, Egbert explains that the edict of 1717 fixed the number of students
who could attend the school of the Académie:

Six students were to be chosen by the professor in charge, while each of the
Academicians (of whom there were to be twenty-two in classes, in addition
to the professor and secretary) was also to be allowed to choose. The
twenty-eight chosen students were to be the only ones with the title of
“élèves de l’Académie”.6

This capping of entries to the Académie, both concerning Membres and students,
effectively produced an elite school. Entry for prospective students through its envi-
able gates could only be gained on the exit of another. The elitism was exacerbated
with the system that controlled the replacement of Membres; a replacement was
almost certain to be a distinguished student of the Académie. The registration system
of a new student to the Académie is not fully known; indeed, it may be that no system
existed at all. However, it is likely that the protocol was similar to that practised
during the former years at the architectural section of the École des Beaux-Arts. At
the École, the student was required to pass on a letter of recommendation from a
Patron of an atelier (a workshop where students practised drawings and design skills)
to the Académie (a requirement dropped in 1863) together with a document that
stated that the candidate was between the age of fifteen and thirty years.7
When De Gondrin increased the number of academicians in 1717, the lecture
series was also overhauled, and a course was developed lasting two to three
years. The course started each year in November and ran through to the follow-
ing September. The decree of 1755 increased the weekly lecture timetable from
four to eight hours and comprised, ‘quatre heures de mathématiques et quatre
heures d’architecture’.8 Chafee expands this definition of ‘architecture’ to include,

… the different notions, rules and practices of architecture – in all, a course

on the principles of architecture and the knowledge needed for its practise.9

Until 1761 teaching at the Académie was undertaken solely in the lecture room;
the subject was taught using the spoken word. However, most students also
attended entirely separate and independently organised workshops known as
‘ateliers’.10 The ateliers operated in parallel with the academic lectures and fol-
lowed an apprenticeship form of education whereby a limited number of students
were taught draughtsmanship skills and architectural design by a master, who
was known as a Patron. 11 The Patron offered his atelier’s facilities to whoever
could pay the fee and possessed the required abilities as a designer. Thus, his
catchment area stretched far broader than merely the students of the Académie.
72 The school of the Académie
Students of an architectural atelier who also attended the Académie were known
as élèves de l’Académie. Lemonnier’s Procès-Verbaux does not make mention of
the working practices of the architectural ateliers; however, Efland’s description
of a typical art atelier of the mid-eighteenth century gives some insight.

The typical atelier had a set routine. Early on Monday morning the massier (a
student monitor) would set the pose of the model, and the student would arrive
as early as possible to obtain a good place in the room for the week. Drawing or
painting would take place in the morning hours, followed by afternoon visits to
the Louvre to copy masterpieces. Once a week the Patron would visit the atelier
to offer critiques, stopping at each easel to make and explain corrections.12

Students who did not attend the Académie but eagerly desired the revered title of
élèves de l’Académie often undertook training at an architectural atelier with the
hopes of gaining entry. Similarly, most students who attended the Académie
regarded the ateliers as the standard means by which they could become recognised
and further establish a reputation. The status and professional success of a student
was generally enhanced upon entry to both the Académie and an atelier that was
run by an acknowledged Patron. For this reason, Patrons and academicians alike
would often encourage a particularly gifted student to attend both the Académie (if
they were not already doing so) and an atelier of high renown since the students’
success invariably reflected a favourable light onto themselves. Success bred suc-
cess. The more renowned the Patron, the more talented students wanted to
associate and align themselves to the atelier’s proven track record. Moreover, the
competition between the independent ateliers and the ensuing rise in student suc-
cess profited the Académie, which could raise the bar even higher, guaranteeing it
would get only the best pupils.

Teaching at the school under Jacques-François Blondel

The most influential and well-documented atelier was that which belonged to
Jacques-François Blondel (1705–1774). (It would be easy to suppose that Jac-
ques-François [J.-F.] and Nicolas-François [N.-F.] were related given their clo-
sely matched names, although there is no evidence to suggest that this is true).
The private workshop developed into the first independent architectural school
in May 1743; thus, effectively ending the Académie’s dominance over French
architectural education. Collins notes that J.-F. Blondel had ‘been teaching for
fifteen years “publicly and privately”’ and deduced that he must ‘at the latest
have started teaching in 1737’.13 J.-F. Blondel’s atelier was transformed into a
private school in 1740 and called the École des Arts, although three years passed
before it was officially recognised and permitted to exist by the Académie. The
school marked a turning point in French architectural education:

“Before 1740”, wrote Pierre Patte, who completed the last two volumes of
J.-F. Blondel’s published Cours d’Architecture, “there was no school in
 The school of the Académie 73
Paris where a young man might be trained and learn everything he needed,
such as architectural and ornamental drawing, perspective, stereotomy,
quantity surveying and all the other numerous details involved in building
construction. He had to visit successively various teachers to learn each of
these subjects, which wasted time, and caused him usually to learn drawing
and neglect the rest. It was for this reason that M Blondel created an École
des Arts, where several teachers, specialising in these various subjects
taught in one place under his direction.” Blondel himself explained at
length the purpose of his undertaking in the August 1747 issue of the
Mercure de France. “To train skilled architects,” he wrote, “it is indis-
pensable to unite the study of all the relevant arts” (i.e. painting, sculpture,
garden design, masonry, joinery, carpentry, locksmith’s work, etc.); and
this, he asserted, had never been done before.14

The Académie initially accepted J.-F. Blondel’s school with considerable

reluctance.15

When he first proposed this school, the Académie had opposed the found-
ing of a rival school open to all who pay the fees, holding that “public
schools of architecture were contrary to the objectives of the Académie and
against its statutes.” In about a year, however, the Académie reversed its
decision, and then stated that “the school of the Sieur Blondel would be
useful to the open public and to the advancement of the young people who
wish to apply themselves to architecture.”16

The new school proved to be very successful; it received a warm reception from
the public, acquired a favourable reputation in a short period and produced
many distinguished students. The results reflected well on J.-F. Blondel and the
king named him a Membre of the Académie d’Architecture in 1756.17 Further-
more, in 1761 J.-F. Blondel was invited by the Académie to be a Professeur, 18
though he continued to teach at his private school, with intermittent breaks, for
the rest of his life.
J.-F. Blondel became arguably the most prominent of all Professeurs, out-
flanking even N.-F. Blondel. Robin Middleton notes,

There is no background so solid, no starting point so firm for the study of

eighteenth century French architecture as that provided by Jacques François
Blondel, an architect of the most commonplace classical kind.19

Middleton continues to describe how J.-F. Blondel’s ‘influence as a teacher was

enormous; he dominated the world of architectural history’.20 During his
career, he taught Charles de Wailly (1730–1798), Jacques Gondoin (1737–1818),
Louis Jean Desprez (1743–1804), Jean Baptiste Rondelet, Etienne Louis Boullée
(1728–1799) and Claude Nicolas Ledoux (1736–1806), among many others,
though his closest disciple was Pierre Patte (1723–1814).
74 The school of the Académie
Whereas the Académie only required its students to attend lectures for eight
hours a week, J.-F. Blondel’s school required students to attend for eight hours
per day for two years.21 When he was appointed Professeur of the academic
school, J.-F. Blondel ‘applied to it much the same program he had developed in
his own school’.22 At his inaugural lecture as Professeur, he announced:

There were to be two sets of courses, one an elementary six-month course

for amateurs and beginners, the other a two-year course in theory for ser-
ious artists. … The two courses were to be given at the same time for two
hours and a half on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and were to be
preceded by two hours of calculus and geometry taught by the mathemati-
cian Camus. Supplementary teaching in the two regular courses would be
given for four hours and a half on Friday mornings for those who desired
it. The course on theory was to have three parts, the first dealing with
decoration, the second with the layout (distribution) of buildings in rela-
tion to facades, and the third with construction, including the quality of
materials and the precautions necessary to achieve economy, rapidity, and
perfection in building. Oral teaching was to be aided by demonstration
from models and even by practical observations on building sites so as “to
bring together the elements, the theory, and the experience of art.”23

Similar to N.-F. Blondel’s vision, J.-F. Blondel’s new educational system also
emphasised the importance of the atelier for the education of an aspiring
architect, and he continued to play an active role in his own private atelier in
addition to his teaching at the Académie. Thus, many students still either
worked for other architects (sometimes on the construction site) to provide an
income or attended the atelier of a master of repute to enhance their career
prospects.
J.-F. Blondel’s influence over the Académie was, however, far more wide-
reaching than merely its school. His Architecture Françoise ou Recueil des
Plans, Elevations, Coupes et Profils (four volumes published between 1752 and
1756) and Cours d’Architecture ou Traité de la Décoration, Distribution et
Construction des Bâiments (six volumes of text and three volumes of illustra-
tions published between 1771 and 1777) served to propagate his personal
architectural taste and significantly affected the ideological steer of the Acadé-
mie on a path that it was to follow until the Revolution. Like many professors
before him, J.-F. Blondel’s Cours was primarily based on his public lectures and
is in effect a compendium of the great buildings of his day. The volumes spread
throughout Europe at a rapid rate and quickly became the ‘soundest reposi-
tories of Academic doctrine’.24
During his professorship between 1762 to 1774, J.-F. Blondel gradually
moved the focus of the Académie from a pursuit of proportional ideals to an
acceptance of relative values that change from era to era and were to respond to
varying climates, material resources and other variables in line with broader
late eighteenth-century philosophical dogma. For J.-F. Blondel, this new
 The school of the Académie 75

Figure 4.1 Engraving of elevations of façades facing the inner courtyard of the Louvre,
Paris, Jacques-François-Blondel, Architecture Françoise, Vol. 4, plate 18. The
Architecture Françoise contains many excellent copperplate engravings,
enhanced by a short historical survey of architecture, a survey of Paris, and
an introduction to the basic principles of architecture. His disciple, Pierre
Patte, completed the fourth and final volume in 1777 after Jacques-François
Blondel died in 1774.

outlook took the architectural stylistic form of simple, restrained classicism,

though never quite to the extent of Neo-classicism. However, styles based on
relative values are inevitably complex; thus, on the one hand, J.-F. Blondel
advocated the early Académie’s predilection for Vitruvius and the other ‘great
architects’, while on the other hand, he believed that the imitation of antiquity
was inappropriate as it was from a foreign land with different socio-economic
and environmental conditions and of a different era. In his Cours, J.-F. Blondel
wrote ‘let the young architect above all flee … the imitation of works that have
no specific character’.25
Thus, his ‘achievement’ was to allow the wilful merger of acknowledged ideals
and traditions with personal originality within certain undefined confines that
bought about an innovative French classical style. His writings reiterate the argu-
ments of the Quarelle, and without any new philosophical justification, he con-
stantly revised his personal judgements; thus he avoided any categorical answer,
and scattered contradictions throughout his Cours. At times Claude Perrault
received favourable comment while at other times the older Blondel was without
peer, but often his favour rested mostly upon François Mansart as a truly French
modern architect. Middleton describes J.-F. Blondel’s relative stance in terms of
abiding by rules most of the time though not allowing them to control:

Poetic feeling and originality tempered by genius – excellent qualities in

Blondel’s view – were thus to be allowed free play in the act of creation.
Yet they were at the same time to be controlled by the dictates of the most
highly developed tastes. Everything was to be in conformity: there was to
be no false note. The canons of the Greeks and Romans and all the exact-
ing rules of Palladio, Scamozzi, and Vignola could be set aside on occasion,
provided always that the work of innovation was so clear and consistent in
76 The school of the Académie
character that nothing obtruded, nothing was eye-catching, nothing – least
of all – was done for effect.26

It was J.-F. Blondel who wrote most expansively on the new architectural atti-
tude that emerged in France during the mid-eighteenth century. It was not so
much that he originated the idea of a more straightforward freer style of
architecture, but sought to strengthen the independence of eighteenth-century
French architecture and separate it from the Italian Renaissance style.

Competitions at the school of the Académie

The first architectural competition undertaken by the Académie was set in 1701
and judged in 1702.27 When the constitution of 1717 afforded the Académie
royal consent, the formation of an annual competition was also provided for;
however, the proposal only came to fruition in 1720.28 The annual competitions
were initially called le Prix, though they later became known by the more
familiar titles, Grand Prix or Prix de Rome (this name was formed because the
prize was often associated with a stipend to the Académie de France à Rome).29
By the end of the seventeenth century, the Grand Prix had become the highlight
of the year in French architectural education for nearly two and half centuries
and the most important system by which more gifted students were taught and
their abilities measured. Because competitions at the Académie were the only
‘official’ quantifiable method of validating students’ talents, winners of the
Grand Prix prize generally enjoyed substantial notoriety, which often afforded
them formidable careers.30 In effect, the winners were chosen because the Aca-
démie believed their ability to be truly great, a belief that was reflected by many
of them gaining the honour of election to the Académie.31 The awards for
winners of the first and second prize of the Grand Prix competition took the
form of small circular gold and silver coin medals. Each medal had embossed
on one side the king’s portrait and on the other that of Monseigneur le Regent.
There was never an intention to build the designs for the Grand Prix compe-
titions; they were merely student exercises in which no attention had to be paid
to the economic considerations that beset the architect in practice. Likewise, the
idealistic and even fantastical forms barely considered legal or professional mat-
ters, and context is at best only presented in block form. However, it appears
that some designs greatly influenced or were influenced by built works; C.
Combes’ winning design of 1781 bears considerable resemblance to Jacques-Ger-
main Soufflot’s Sainte Geneviève, Paris, built between 1757 and 1790.
In January 1701 Colbert initiated the first parameters that formed a compe-
tition.32 The competition was given the title, ‘Un Portail et un plan d’un église’,
and competitors were requested to draw a plan, section and elevation of a local
parish church. The exercise is an example of how the competitions were more
than mere sketches; indeed, it was a year before the three students who took
part presented their entries, of which two were chosen to proceed to a further
level. In March 1702 a winner was chosen, though both candidates were
 The school of the Académie 77
awarded a medal. However, the result was far from decisive, and the Ministre
drew lots to determine the winner as the two students were judged to be equal.
The two successful students were Jacquier Jacquet, (winner of the Grande
Médaille) and Jean-Baptiste LeRoux (1677–1746), (winner of the Petite
Médaille).33 They worked alone on Mondays before attending the council’s
weekly meetings, in chambers that adjoined the council office in the Académie
at the Louvre. At the close of each session, the students were requested to leave
their work with the Secrétaire who secured the week’s developments. When the
designs were completed, the work was passed onto the Académie’s Surintendant
des Batiments, who then decided the date that the entries would be judged. In
the following year, another attempt was made to run a competition, but the
Académie’s Procès-Verbaux failed to record the winner, or even if the pro-
gramme had been completed. However, it appears that the parish church was
the subject of all informal competitions for the following twenty years.
Although an annual competition had been proposed in 1717, it was only when
Desgodets had been made Professeur of the Académie in 1719 that the matter was
actioned. In June 1720, Desgodets requested that a competition be held based on
the same principles as that of the 1701 competition,34 and on 2 September 1720
Robert de Cotte (1656–1735), the Surintendant des Bâtiments, finally introduced
the award.35 From here on the competition became an annual event.36 As it tran-
spires, only a silver medal was awarded at the end of the academic year of 1720.37
In 1763 J.-F. Blondel radically changed the schooling of students and introduced
a monthly competition, the Prix d’Emulation, which sought to provide more reg-
ular accreditation for an increasing body of students whilst raising the standards
expected of students entering the Grand Prix. 38 Though all students were eligible
to enter the Prix d’Emulation, rather than just the students sponsored by Patrons as
with the Grand Prix, it was often the case that more gifted students spent their
time on the annual competitions or paid commissions, and did not bother with the
monthly competitions. Thus, students who competed for the Prix d’Emulation
were sometimes considered of a lesser ability, which led to an unofficial two-tier
educational system. It had been hoped that the Prix d’Emulation was to be a pre-
paratory exercise for the Grand Prix designs and as a useful means to check that
certain obligatory subjects were being studied and adhered to by students; how-
ever, these ambitions were only realised during the 1760s. Nevertheless, both the
monthly and annual competitions tested two abilities: firstly, the students’ ability
to design a ‘course of action’ following a programme imposed by the Académie,
which was primarily confined to basic structure; and secondly, draughtsmanship. A
great deal of importance was placed on the final presentation.
As a stipend to the Grand Prix award, winners were automatically nomi-
nated by the Académie to study at the Académie de France à Rome, although it
was always at the king’s discretion.39 Blondel had announced in his inaugural
lecture that it was the wish of the king to ‘choose a large number of students that
he would send to Rome at his expense’.40 The Académie de France à Rome had
existed in Rome since 1666 and received, on a regular basis, students from dif-
ferent Académies based in France. The list of boarders that stayed in the Roman
78 The school of the Académie
academy records that architects were admitted from its inception; however,
between 1722 and 1730 only four winners of the Grand Prix were sent.41 There-
after, most Grand Prix winners attended the Académie de France à Rome with
reasonable regularity. One notable disturbing period was from 1767 to 1772
when Abel-François Poisson de Vandières (1727–1781) (known as Marquis de
Marigny), the eleventh Surintendant des Bâtiments du Roi, argued with the Aca-
démie and sent his chosen candidates rather than the prize-winner.42 This stance
was accentuated when Marigny’s successor, Joseph Marie Terray (1715–1778),
reiterated that ‘a stipend for Rome was not the right of the prize-winner, but a
favour granted by the king’. The method of selection was in stark contrast to the
more democratic system of admittance adhered to at the Académie de Peinture et
de Sculpture, where entry to the Académie de France à Rome was at the expense
of the state and was an automatic prize for its annual competitions.
On arrival at Rome the students, known as pensionnaires, would stay for
three years and be required to produce plans and elevations of the finest build-
ings in Rome together with designs of their own. However, these rules were
loosely policed until 1778 when they became regularised by an edict. After 1780,
the Académie also decided it wanted some recompense for the stipend and
required that students study buildings of the ancient city to further the library’s
database in Paris. Thereafter, studies, or envois de Rome, were returned to
France and collected, starting with relevés of the Pantheon in 1783.
Students who submitted entries for the Grand Prix were hand-picked by
Patrons; the only formal requirement was that they were to be an élève of the
Académie and of French citizenship. Upon accepting an invitation to enter the
competition students were issued, by dictation, a short project programme,
which stated the type of building to be designed, the kind of activities to be
housed within it, and which spaces should be provided. At the same time, stu-
dents were informed of the strict protocol, all of which had been prepared by
nominated Membres, (not always teaching staff). No record of a written brief
exists other than what is sometimes noted on the drawings themselves. How-
ever, by observing the competition drawings, it is evident that programmes
generally invited students to prepare designs for a substantial architectural
project of royal, state or civic importance, although a few of the earlier com-
petitions required students to design only part of a building.
All Grand Prix competitions required contestants to undertake two tasks: the
first was a short initial sketch design in response to the programme, known as
the esquisse, and the second was the production of a set of final drawings,
known as the projets rendus. 43 The esquisse was undertaken within a specified
period, generally twelve hours, and under the strict supervision of Membres;
however, after 1744 students were required to undertake the esquisse together
with the final submission drawings en loge, that is, an isolated room or ‘cell’ so
as to ensure that the work was original and untainted by the assistance of
others.44 This first stage of the competition process required a student to pro-
duce a sketch plan, section and elevation of a proposed solution to indicate the
design rudiments of the scheme; little importance was placed on the quality of
 The school of the Académie 79
drawings. Once the initial design concept had been established the student was
henceforth bound to adhere to his proposals; thus, the esquisse effectively
ensured that most design work, especially the provision of accommodation and
the general principles of proportion, was undertaken in the first instance. The
request was a conscious decision by the Académie to ensure that students
follow its preferred method of designing buildings once noted by J.-F. Blondel,

After considering the general components of a building project, the archi-

tect should study first the building’s principal parts, … and later consider
the building’s details.45

It was only during the production of the final drawings that students considered
more detailed design matters. The system, though proscriptive, was an effective
method for compelling students to demonstrate an innate ability to address
essential architectural problems posed by a programme quickly. It also miti-
gated a common error of most beginners, namely, being side-tracked by detailed
matters at the start of a design project.
As of the 1730s, Grand Prix contestants ceased to be ‘invited’ and instead any
student of the Académie was eligible to participate. Not surprisingly, therefore,
the number of competitors significantly increased; in 1739, the Académie judged
the esquisse entries on their own merits to sift out all but eight contestants.
After the Revolution, the École continued this two-stage judging system, though
in a more ordered form. It established three preliminary competitions that,
upon successful completion, led to the secondary Grand Prix competition.46
This second stage competition at the Académie required contestants to set about
producing the final drawings; the duration of this stage varied considerably with
each competition. Only drawings of building plans, elevations and sections (known
as profiles prior to 1750) were permitted; no models, written work or dialogue
were accepted. Perspective drawings were submitted only three times, and these
were considered supplementary information to the main drawings; notable excep-
tions include elevations by Auguste Hebert in his Premier Prix design of 1784. The
submitted work was never drawn freehand, but with instruments that produce
clean and exact lines and curves. Additionally, drawings, especially elevations, were
rendered with a monochrome water-based wash to emphasise form and give depth
to the images. Shadows were also often added to make clear what parts of the
building protrude and what parts are sliced through in section. Likewise, windows
were invariably simple black areas with no framing details.
As of 1774, the Académie retained many of the projets redus drawings and on
22 June 1778 the etcher, Amant-Parfait Prieur, proposed a system whereby they
would be copied and published. The Académie pledged their full support although
a formal collection of drawings did not begin until 12 February 1781.47 The Aca-
démie agreed that the publication should comprise a copy of the plan, section and
elevation and that these were to be reduced to half the originally drawn size. The
paper used for the original drawings was known as grand aigle sheets and mea-
sured up to 230 by 230 centimetres, while the paper to be used for the reduced
80 The school of the Académie
drawings was known as demi-feuille grand aigle sheets and measured around 85
by 70 centimetres.48 This initial idea to reproduce and publish drawings was never
executed though in 1787 Prieur did submit a set of six drawings, known as a
cahier, which comprised copies of schemes by Jacques Gisors and Jacques
DeLannoy, who had won first and second place respectively in 1779, and Louis
Trouard’s winning drawings of 1780. In 1790 another etcher, Pierre-Louis Van
Cléemputte, joined Prieur and together they produced and sold a series of twenty
cahiers. The copies were not in chronological order; the first to be etched was
Crucy’s design of 1774, which was published in the eighth and ninth cahiers. Each
etching had written on it by hand the project title, the author and a brief
description of the drawing. Occasionally a synopsis of the programme was also
handwritten on an etching, such as Gisors’ plan of 1779. Not long before the
Académie closed in 1793, Van Cléemputte published the cahiers from 1774 to 1789
in a single volume called the Collection des Prix que la ci-devant Académie
d’Architecture proposoit et couronnoit tous les ans. 49 The etchings were made
available in two forms, simple line drawings (a copy of this form can be found at
the Library of the École des Beaux-Arts) and a far more expensive version that
was tinted with watercolour and showed shadowing (a copy of this form can be
found at the Département des Estampes of the Bibliotèque Nationale in Paris).
Reproductions of the etchings from these copies are shown below together with
some original drawings.

Figure 4.2 Jean Pinard, Un Hôtel, main elevation, Premier Prix 1723, original drawing.
The oldest surviving Grand Prix competition drawing. Tied paper, Chinese
ink and wash, drawing measures 69  48 cm. Pinard was also commended
for his entry in the 1922 Grand Prix.
 The school of the Académie 81
None of the original drawings from the first four competitions have sur-
vived.50 The earliest drawing that remains in existence is an elevation measur-
ing around 60 centimetres long by Jean Pinard from 1723 of a Hôtel for a grand
seigneur; the location of the plan and section drawings, which were also sub-
mitted, is unknown.51 The design is typical of earlier competition entries; its
austere classicism is rather bland and conveys a monumental idealism ignorant
of context. As with all the Grand Prix designs the façade is symmetrical along a
central axis, and the use of ornament is restrained, in this instance evident only
on the head of apertures, cast iron balustrades, a slim frieze and an attic level
baluster. The vertical junctions of the three sections that form the façade,
together with the two ends, are emphasised with rusticated pilasters. The cen-
tral section is accentuated by pulling together the taller apertures and adding a
protruding juliet balcony and portico. The resultant image appears rather flat
on the page, which is exacerbated by the absence of any ground line or space
above alluding to the sky.
The most lasting impression that the Grand Prix designs leave with the
modern observer is one of monumentality. In almost every instance, buildings
and their designed surroundings are colossal, idealised and entirely separated
from their contexts. The designs are visions of a new empowering world.
Finances are of no hindrance, and humdrum domestics are of no importance.
Furthermore, the competitions were an opportunity to display a student’s abil-
ity to carry out major building work and attract the interest of possible clients;
with competition so stiff, a design of mammoth distinction was invariably the
order of the day. A typical Grand Prix design imbues scale, symmetry, order,
harmony, proportion and idealism. Perhaps the most monumental scheme is
Pierre Fontaine’s (1762–1853) 1785 design for a funerary chapel. The design
mixes aspects of Boullée’s purist Cenotaph for Newton (designed in 1784) with
massive ancient Egyptian forms.

Figure 4.3 Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, Un Momument Sépulcral pour les Souver-

ains d’un Grand Empire, Second Prix 1785. Although Fontaine’s design is not
as pure in form as Boullée’s half buried sphere design, it still champions his
idea that immortality can be found in the memory of future generations; a
concept that was first expressed in 1765 by Diderot in the Encyclopédie under
the title Immortalité, though greatly expounded in Boullée’s latter futuristic
architecture.
82 The school of the Académie
The building scale of the Grand Prix designs is often difficult to precisely
comprehend as the context is rarely added to the drawing. The student is unable
to visit the site during work on their esquisse and confinement to the loges also
prohibits them from researching precedence. Thus, contexts are blanked out with
simple hatched areas and effort is directed instead to practising the design skill
the student has been taught and the talents they have acquired.
Grandeur was emphasised by function and materiality; the buildings were
invariably royal, religious or civic, and constructed of heavy cut stone or
marble. References to revered edifices from Rome and Greece further empha-
sised the building’s importance. Another feature commonly found in the Grand
Prix designs is a strong emphasis on relating the building’s constituent elements
to the whole; repetitive elements are often coupled to form a holistic ensemble.
Furthermore, the designs are generally symmetrical on one or more axes in both
plan and elevation. The plans are usually arranged around one or more focal
points where axes cross such as a courtyard or important central room of
simple geometric shape. On occasion, designs included three axes that converge
in the centre of a circular form, the first of which was Trourd’s College of 1780.
The designs were functionally appropriate and often imbued a novel classical
vocabulary, which emulated ancient Roman or Greek architecture. Mathurin
Crucy’s Premier Prix design of 1774 is reminiscent of ancient Roman imperial
baths, and Paul Lemoine’s elevation in his 1755 competition entry imbues a
Greek classical language.52 During the 1780s, student designs began to more
freely mix the shared standards of good taste with individual interpretations of
antiquity. The social functioning of buildings was widened, and the highly
charged archaeological area of detailing Orders was avoided; concern instead
being placed on novel expressions of proportion and adaptations of the classical
language. However, juries at the Académie generally ensured that more imagi-
native schemes received the Second Prix, favouring instead a traditional alle-
giance to antiquity. Fontaine’s entry of 1785 is again a good example of this
type of judgement. The Académie complained that Fontaine’s drawings were
too picturesque, though the students successfully ensured that Fontaine received
the bursary to Rome although the disruption was so great that the minister
threatened to close the Académie if any such trouble recurred.53 Nevertheless,
despite an evident eagerness on the part of the student to experiment with more
‘personal’ responses to the competition brief, designs for the Grand Prix gen-
erally remained within the confines of acceptable classicism and little serious
attempt was made to create a radical difference. It was because of the jury’s
conservative understanding of the existence of universal principles and the
overriding interest in ancient classicism of the time that the Grand Prix reflected
a remarkably consistent architectural tradition; ultimately, students were keen
not to antagonise their assessor’s traditional views with so much riding on the
outcome of their competition entries. The refusal by the Académie for students
to submit anything other than plans, elevations and sections further hindered
architectural innovation and led to the schemes appearing abstract and artifi-
cial. The restrictive programme suppressed a sense of realism in the designs and
 The school of the Académie 83
strengthened instead the Académie’s preference for rational idealism. Egbert
notes that the drawings were,

abstractions of the “real” world of nature and the senses, inasmuch as they
do not depict architecture “realistically” as it appears to the eye of the
beholder.54

Architectural detail and ornament were required to be indicated on elevations and

sectional drawings; however, their scale precluded any need for detailed accuracy.
Furthermore, sectional cuts were invariably denoted by a white space with only
the barest of structural information. The omission of a requirement to study
examples of detailed work is curious, especially given the Académie’s prolonged
interest in such detailed proportional refinement. The Procès-Verbaux fail to
explain why this is so; thus, one is left to suppose that the omission is to compel a
student to address the more general issues relating to architectural design.
Unsurprisingly, the competition programmes chosen initially related to royal
buildings and later introduced more public functions, reflecting a growing sense
that the king’s responsibility is for his people. Thus, the first competition of
1720 was entitled Un Entrée de Palais Dorique, whereas in 1733 it was entitled
Une Place Publique. Nevertheless, the programmes, which changed for each
competition, were invariably either a house for stately figures or institutions
such as national schools, public monuments, museums and libraries; cathedrals
and churches were also included when the Catholic church was accepted as the
state religion.
As interest in the Grand Prix competition increased during the beginning of
the eighteenth century, so the competition programmes became more demand-
ing and the designs grander in scale. Only three students entered the competi-
tion of 1701–2 for a doorway and plan of a church; in 1723 students were
required to design an entire hotel, and from 1748 onwards students were reg-
ularly required to design huge public buildings. By 1753 the designs had become
so grand and the drawings so large that the students’ loges (built in 1744) had
to be extended.55 The problem continued; in 1772 J.-F. Blondel accepted that
final drawings for the Grand Prix could be produced at a smaller scale, again
because of the lack of space in the loges. However, it appears the increase in the
size of drawings was driven by the students; Crucy’s winning plan of 1774
measured 180 by 116 centimetres and a section of the main building measured
181 by 109 centimetres.
Another outcome of the increasing popularity of the Grand Prix competitions
was that more students with greater potential competed and with their talents
came a reluctance for them to comply with the working procedures set by the
Académie. However, it was never the students who were most criticised for
their dealings with the competition system. In 1745, the names of certain
Patrons, who were Membres that sponsored students in the competitions and
taught them in their ateliers, started to be published in connection with the
students’ competition entries. The Patrons were recorded in the Procès-Verbaux
84 The school of the Académie
and were initially only cited when a student submitted an entry for the esquisse.
However, in 1758, Patrons of the winning students began to be noted; thus, the
reputation of the Patron became increasingly dependent upon the success of his
protégé. Hereafter, the Grand Prix became not only a competition between
students, but also between the Patrons, and since the competitions were often
judged by the very same Patrons who stood to benefit from a positive outcome
by their protégés, there existed a temptation for a Patron to support the work
of his own student.
The situation was exacerbated by a long-standing problem that stemmed from
some students acquiring additional assistance to complete competition entries on
time and to a high standard. The use of illegal assistance grew as private space in
the Académie began to fill with more students, and the happy prospect of win-
ning the Grand Prix obscured the penalty of dishonesty. By the mid-eighteenth
century, the problem had grown to epidemic proportions and entirely under-
mined the whole system. It also led to new rules in 1762 that forbad any student
to accept anyone into his lodgings, to circulate in the Louvre, or speak to other
students. The ruling was part of a host of new legislation announced by J.-F.
Blondel when he was appointed Professeur earlier in the year.
The Grand Prix designs closely emulated the ideology of the Académie as
formulated by N.-F. Blondel throughout the life of the school. However, stu-
dents were sometimes afforded some freedom in their designs, and the French
architectural academic tradition showed it could cope with limited variation in
architectural compositional treatment. A more radical departure from the Aca-
démie’s traditional stance became evident at the École only after the emergence
of political questions that started the French Revolution, new technological
advances of the Industrial Revolution, and a progress in science which was
sparked by the work of Francis Bacon. Even after all this, stylistic innovation
was slow to surface.56

Notes
1 Egbert also notes that in 1717 the number of students was first capped to twenty-
eight ‘élèves’. Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 25.
2 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. IX.
3 Ibid. Also see Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, for a list of
the subjects taught by Blondel and at what point. See also Hautecoeur, Histoire de
l’architecture classique en France, Vol. 2, p. 465 and Vol. 3 generally.
4 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, p. 131.
5 Mosser & Rabreau, ‘L’Académie Royale et L’Enseignement d’Architecture’, p. 52.
6 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 25.
7 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 82. Chafee
continues to explain that an aspirant à l’École des Beaux-Arts would then begin
preparations for an entrance exam. However, there is nothing to suggest that such an
exam existed at the Académie d’Architecture.
8 Mosser & Rabreau, ‘L’Académie Royale et L’Enseignement d’Architecture’, p. 52.
9 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, pp. 61–2.
 The school of the Académie 85
10 During the sixteenth century in Italy the term Atelier referred solely to the work-
shop; however, when certain French ateliers became noted for the excellence of their
teaching and the success of their students during the eighteenth century, the term
started to also refer to those who attended the ateliers. See Efland, Arthur D., A
History of Art Education: Intellectual and Social Currents in Teaching the Visual
Arts, Teachers College Press, New York, 1990, p. 52.
11 Hautecoeur, Histoire de l’architecture classique en France, Vol. 3. pp. 465–6.
12 Efland, A History of Art Education, p. 53.
13 Collins, ‘The Eighteenth Century Origins of Our System of Full-Time Architectural
Schooling’, pp. 2–3.
14 Ibid., p. 3.
15 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, p. 92.
16 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 26.
17 Egbert notes that the king had named J.-F. Blondel in late 1755, but he was issued
with a position only when the Académie expanded the number of its members in
1756, ibid.
18 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, p. 129. Egbert also notes
that in 1762 the Académie introduced two professors: Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tra-
dition in French Architecture, p. 23. The first instance was when Mauduit was
appointed Professeur Géométrie, see ibid., p. 129.
19 Middleton, Robin, ‘Jacques François Blondel and the “Cours d’Architecture”’, The
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 18, No. 4, December, 1959,
p. 140.
20 Ibid.
21 J.-F. Blondel’s Cours d’Architecture, Vol. 3. (1772), pp. LXXXV–XC; p. 26.
22 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 27.
23 Ibid.
24 Middleton, ‘Jacques François Blondel and the “Cours d’Architecture”’, p. 140.
25 Blondel, Jacques-François, Cours d’Architecture ou Traité de la Décoration, Dis-
tribution et Construction des Bâiments, Paris, 1771–7, Vol. 1, p. 136.
26 Middleton, ‘Jacques François Blondel and the “Cours d’Architecture”’, p. 143.
27 The competition was entitled Un Portail et un plan d’une église and simply involved
drawing a doorway and plan of a church. Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. III, pp.
120–1.
28 Ibid., Vol. IV, pp. 335–47. It had been announced on 16 January 1702 that a com-
petition would be held every three months (Vol. III, p. 144.); however, nothing came
of the promise.
29 Though the title Grand Prix was regularly used at the Académie, the term became
officially recognised only at the École after the Revolution.
30 The more notable students to have won a Grand Prix competition and enjoyed a
formidable carrier include: Jacques-Félix Duban (first prize 1823), Nicolas-Louis
Durand (second prize 1779 & 1780), Pierre-François-Leonard Fontaine (first prize
1785), Pierre-François-Henri Labrouste (second prize 1821 & first prize 1824), Pierre-
François Lebon (first prize 1725), Charles Percier (first prize 1786), and Jean Pinard
(first prize 1723).
31 The first graduate of the Grand Prix to become a Membre of the Académie was
Pierre-Étienne Lebon in 1741 who had won the Grand Prix in 1725, see Delaire, Les
Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, pp. 130 and 134.
32 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. 3, 19 January 1701.
33 Ibid., Vol. 3, pp. 120–1.
34 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, p. 92.
35 On the annual competition of 1720 and thereafter see, Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol.
3; pp. IX, 120–1, 142–9, 169, 173 and 179; Vol. 4. pp. V, VIII, IX, XIV, XV and 110.
36 Interruptions occurred between 1794 and 1796, 1915 and 1918, and 1940 and 1941.
86 The school of the Académie
37 Chafee records that the only prize awarded that year was a silver award. However,
Delaire notes that Antoine Deriset (Derizet) was the winner of the First place for the
Grand Prix in 1720, Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, p. 134.
Egbert notes that a ‘Prix’ was awarded rather than ‘Premier Prix’ or ‘Second Prix’ as
otherwise listed, ibid., p. 168.
38 Student numbers had increased as a result of the decrees of 1699, 1717 and 1728.
39 Competitions between 1864 and 1871 were not administrated by the Académie, but
by the Conseil Supérieur d’Enseignement and from 1937 the Académie’s control over
the competition was considerably reduced.
40 Blondel, Cours d’Architecture, Preface.
41 The students who were sent to Rome before 1730 are: Jean-Michel Le Jolivet (1722),
Jean Pinard (1723), and Jean-Pierre Boncourt (1724), and Jean-François Gallot (1727).
42 Marquis de Marigny became the Surintendant des Bâtiments in 1755, see Delaire, Les
Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, p. 129. It was during Marigny’s term in
office that the competitions between 1864 and 1871 were not administrated by the
Académie, but by the Conseil Supérieur d’Enseignement and from 1937 the Acadé-
mie’s control over the competition was considerably reduced.
43 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. IV, p. 245.
44 Lemonnier notes that after completion of the 1702 competition submissions, con-
testants were asked to sketch their proposed plans again with a pencil in the presence
of Membres to ensure that the submission was his own: Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux,
Vol. III, p. 142–9.
45 Jacques-François Blondel, Cours d’Architecture, Vol. 3, pp. lxiii–lxiv.
46 The initial requirements comprised two twelve-hour sketch design competitions, (one
for an architectural motif and one for a building plan), and a 24-hour sketch design
competition for a complete building.
47 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. IV, pp. 36–7.
48 Egbert notes that the largest drawing submitted for the Grand Prix was a plan by
Percier in 1786, Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 94. n. 63.
49 The publication is not dated and was published in Paris. After the Académie closed,
the title page was amended. Drawings from the Prix d’Emulation also form part of
the volume, although no drawings from 1775 to 1778 and 1780 are included. The
best-preserved copy of this publication is kept at the Library of the École des Beaux-
Arts and is known as Volume 1. After the Académie was closed and the École
formed, four further ‘volumes’ were published: Projects d’architecture et autre pro-
ductions de cet art qui ont mérités les Grand Prix, Paris, published in 1806 by
Detournelle, the publication comprises etchings from 1791 to 1805 (except 1793 and
from 1794 to 1796) (Volume 2 at the École des Beaux-Arts); Grand Prix d’Archi-
tecture: Projets couronnés par l’Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de France: Gravés
et publiés par A.L.T. Vaudoyer et L.P. Baltard, Paris, published in 1818, the pub-
lication comprises etchings from 1801 to 1815 (Volume 3 at the École des Beaux-
Arts); Grand Prix d’Architecture: Projets couronnés par l’Académie Royale des
Beaux-Arts de France: Gravés et publiés par A.L.T. Vaudoyer et L.P. Baltard, Paris,
published in 1834, the publication comprises etchings from 1808 to 1831 (Volume 4
at the École des Beaux-Arts); Grand Prix d’Architecture: Projets couronnés par
l’Académie des Beaux-Arts de France: Publiés par D. Avanzo et Compie, Liège,
published in 1842, the publication comprises etchings from 1774 to 1806 (except from
1776 to 1778, 1786, 1790, 1793, 1794, 1796 to 1802), the volume is a reproduction of
Volumes 1–3, though a copy is not kept at the Library of the École des Beaux-Arts.
Hereafter, drawings from 1823 to 1967 were photographed and published in a series
of books, see Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, Appendix 1.
50 A near full set of competition drawings has been compiled as part of the PhD thesis,
The Académie Royale d’Architecture and the French Architectural Academic Tradi-
tion, by Alexander Griffin.
 The school of the Académie 87
51 Jean Pinard’s notes the project title, ‘Elevation du Costé du Jardin’, a scale in toise (1
toise = 1.95 metres), the date of the competition, and the stamp of the École Royale
des Beaux-Arts. The drawing uses ink and a water wash to highlight shadow to the
apertures.
52 More images of these earlier schemes exist than most submissions because Prieur had
started to collect competitions entries.
53 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. IX, pp. 165–8.
54 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 94. n. 63.
55 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. VI, p. 208.
56 The first distinctly asymmetrical design that won the Grand Prix competition was
Eugène Duquesne’s design for Une Eglise votive dans un lieu de pèlerinage célèbre in
1897. Even after this, asymmetrical designs were rare.
5 Philosophical and Stylistic Debate on
Architectural Style

The Académie’s preoccupation with Cartesian Rationalism

During the latter years of the seventeenth century, Western culture reassessed
many of its underlying assumptions and generated new ideas that were to shape
subsequent thinking throughout the eighteenth century. In his History of
Europe, Roberts is conscious of the diverse modern application of the term
often given to the European era, namely ‘The Enlightenment Era’, though he
accepts the need to give some definition to it.

One way of characterising the change would be to say that the principles of
rational analysis and exploration already visible in science had been exten-
ded by 1800 to operate in virtually every sphere of life. This great trans-
formation has often been summed up as one single and coherent
phenomenon, a distorting emphasis. Nevertheless, one word, ‘Enlight-
enment’, used by the eighteenth century itself, is still a meaningful indi-
cator. … [The word] implied that what was going on was above all a
process of letting light play upon hitherto dark and obscure ideas, institu-
tions and practices. Many people associated themselves enthusiastically
with it, pursuing it with missionary zeal. It became fashionable to be one’s
own ‘philosopher’ – which did not mean practising technical philosophy,
but thinking for oneself and making up one’s own mind.1

The cosmological shift towards the Enlightenment era was partly driven by
differing interpretations of religious scriptures that had begun in the preceding
century and which ultimately led to the emergence of modern science.2 The
Protestant Reformation saw a move from Orthodox Christianity to a belief that
God could be understood by means of ‘reason’ rather than ‘revelation’. It
stressed the importance of the individual’s relationship with God and cham-
pioned personal Bible study above collective sacramental ceremony. Those who
were involved in founding the Reformation would have been horrified had they
been able to glimpse the outcome of their work. Although primarily concerned
with spiritual matters they inadvertently promoted a raft of new questions that
infiltrated social and political realms and opened the way for individual
 Philosophical and stylistic debate 89
freedom, which in turn led to numerous wars throughout Europe. The Refor-
mation fathers in effect separated secular and religious life and divided Western
Christendom. The result was the very opposite of their ambition; the belief that
God could be comprehended by means of reason, had by the dawn of the
eighteenth century, morphed into a pursuit that emphasised the insights of
reason over the importance of knowing God.
When Isaac Newton described the laws of motion and gravity in his Philoso-
phiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, he reasoned that the
discovery of these new laws of nature necessitated the belief in a creator God and
warned against the view that the world is merely a mechanical structure.

Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set
the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can
be done.3

Newton’s assertion did not generally trouble the minds of millions of Eur-
opeans midway through the second half of the seventeenth century; however, at
the end of the eighteenth century, while an interest in science, mathematics and
technology had grown stronger and exploded in the Industrial Revolution (it
developed in France during the dawn of the nineteenth century, slightly later than
in Britain), the belief in God had moved to the periphery of social concern.4
The Académie’s ideology developed at a time when the Enlightenment’s dis-
tinctive attitude towards human nature played a pivotal role in the reappraisal
of political and religious opinion throughout central Europe. The Académie
conducted its activities and constructed its ideas within the context of Enlight-
enment thinking. When the Académie was inaugurated, the prevailing episte-
mology that shaped the continental European philosophical landscape was
distinctly rationalistic.5 The Académie’s ideology initially emphasised the view
that God had created the universe on the basis of geometrical laws and that
these laws could be comprehended and applied to architecture. Detailed
accounts of the Académie’s pursuance of absolute truth in architectural pro-
portions, which is particularly evident in its thorough and prolonged discus-
sions on the Orders, were often recorded in the Académie’s Procès-Verbaux,
even in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
The Rationalism in which the Académie was so deeply rooted was primarily
influenced by the writings of René Descartes (1596–1650) (and to a lesser extent
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716)), who
held the view that objective truth about the world is innate within all human-
kind and is attained by reason (in the context of Rationalism, reason is a
human faculty, distinct from sensations, imaginations and memory, used to
form concepts) in preference to sensual experiences. Descartes’ Discourse on
Method, tells of how while sitting next to a stove as a soldier he derived his
now famous theory known as ‘Cartesian doubt’. Keeping to his own rules of
accepting nothing except clear and distinct ideas, he considered that because
human senses can be deceived, one must suppose that nothing is as it appears
90 Philosophical and stylistic debate
(the stove he sat in front of could be a dream, a hallucination or a trick of
nature). The only thing that Descartes could not doubt was the fact that he was
thinking about something, which led him to declare ‘Cogito, ergo sum’. Thus,
Descartes began to reject everything he had been taught and sought a basis of
certainty within his own rational powers. On the importance of reason to
rationalistic thought, Descartes notes,

The power of judging rightly, and of separating what is true from what is
false (which is generally called good sense or reason), is equal by nature in
all men. … Reason itself, or good sense, inasmuch as it alone makes us
men, and marks us off from the beasts, I must believe is found whole and
entire in each man.6

Descartes had a profound distrust of the senses as a means to acquire reliable

knowledge of the world and its relationship with humanity.

I learned not to believe too firmly in what only custom and example had
persuaded me to accept as true; and, in this way, I freed myself, little by
little, from many of those errors which obscure the natural light of the
mind, and make us less capable of listening to reason.7

Descartes’ primary interest was how the mind gains knowledge of external
reality as a means to understand what that reality is. He maintained that a
person can deduce using reason, the entire system of certain knowledge about
the external world and that all humans are born, not with a coherent concep-
tion of the world, but with innate seeds of truth that if nurtured will grow to
reveal themselves. Descartes used the analogy of a congenital disease that is
contracted before birth and lays dormant, only to appear when triggered by an
external incident.8 The most significant, although quite subtle, contribution that
Descartes made to the concept of Rationalism was a rejection of the belief that
all comprehension lies in the minds of humans ready to be discovered by one
intuitive insight, and instead asserted that only a few essential truths lay dor-
mant in the mind which can be used to explore, step by step, all truths.

We differ in opinion, not because some of us have a larger share of reason

than others, but because we think in different ways, and do not fix our
attention upon the same objects. For it is not enough to have a good mind;
the principal requirement is that we should apply it in the right way.9

Rationalistic thought during the Enlightenment period principally affected the

ideology of the Académie in two respects; firstly, Rationalism was closely allied
with Colbert’s mercantile aspirations. Both positivist attitudes required the
Académie to produce irrefutably correct architecture that could be appreciated
by all humankind (Colbert would have added, to produce a nation which all
other nations would adore); thus, it was required of the Académie to define
 Philosophical and stylistic debate 91
correct architecture and resolve the quest for ‘good taste’. Secondly, the out-
come of newly gained knowledge that derived from Rationalistic exploration of
mathemata 10 greatly affected the role of the Académie as ‘technical advisor to
the architectural profession’. One example is Galileo’s research on the strength
of materials, which he called ‘the resistance of solids’11 and which aided the
advice issued by the Académie on matters relating to stereotomy. However,
the relationship between Rationalism and the early ideology of the Académie
becomes more tenuous when contrasting Descartes’ theory on ‘doubt’ with
the method by which the Académie taught its findings. According to Des-
cartes, traditional techniques of studying mathemata (reading the works of
other people) was to ‘speak without judgement’12 and ran the risk of
accepting or regurgitating truths mixed with conjecture. In his Discourse on
Method Descartes describes how he avoids such traps and strives to attain
pure truth by observing four rules.

The first rule was to accept as true nothing that I did not know to be evi-
dently so; that is to say, to avoid carefully precipitancy and prejudice, and
to apply my judgements to nothing but that which showed itself so clearly
and distinctly to my mind that I should never have occasion to doubt it.
The second was to divide each difficulty I should examine into as many
parts as possible, and as would be required the better to solve it. The third
was to conduct my thoughts in an orderly fashion, starting with what was
simplest and easiest to know, and rising little by little to the knowledge of
the most complex, even supposing an order where there is no natural pre-
cedence among the objects of knowledge. The last rule was to make so
complete an enumeration of the links in an argument, and to pass them all
so thoroughly under review, that I could be sure I had missed nothing.13

Descartes’ advice on study methods was entirely at odds with the didactic
and prescriptive teaching methods initially practised at the Académie. Whereas
Descartes considered that the acquisition of truth should be a personal journey
of examination, Blondel’s lectures on the findings of the Académie were pre-
scriptive and authoritative in their presentation. Although the two characters
appear similar concerning their desire to unearth ultimate truth, (Blondel’s
quest to define a coherent set of architectural principles is closely akin with
Descartes’ pursuit to judge epistemological ‘truth from falsehood’), it was how
this truth was reached that marks a separation between them.
The Académie generally adhered to the French preoccupation with Cartesian
reason and rational order throughout its existence. Its belief in the existence of
objective architectural form appears to have been passed on like a baton from
one professeur to the next. Desgodets, who was Professeur between 1719 and
1728, declared ‘a belief that the rules governing architecture “are not as it were
arbitrary, they are almost positive”’ and continued to state that beauty lies in
‘the application of rules and regular proportions’.14 Even Julien-David Leroy,
92 Philosophical and stylistic debate
the most prominent Professeur of the late eighteenth century, believed in the
existence of correct architectural proportions,

Architectural principles – and, consequently, architectural beauty – were

relative, located not with a specific form (or forms), but within every
form’s varying adherence to underlying abstract architectural laws.15

The quest to define ‘good taste’ remained a topic of discussion at the Acadé-
mie’s meetings throughout its life; even in the final years of the eighteenth cen-
tury the Procès-Verbaux still record discussions on universal principles that
govern architecture. Thus, the rationalistic position that Blondel adopted effec-
tively steered a rationalistic course that all subsequent leaders of the Académie
followed.

The Querelle des Anciens et Modernes

Blondel’s rationalistic stance is most apparent in his debate with Claude Per-
rault, who shared a more empirical viewpoint;16 the two were the leading pro-
ponents of a dispute that lasted over a century known as the Querelle des
Anciens et Modernes. 17 The quarrel started with a footnote in the second edi-
tion of Perrault’s translation of Vitruvius’ Les Dix Livres d’Architecture where
he claimed that beauty in architecture had little positive foundation but depen-
ded instead on authority and custom.18 The note is curious, as it is one of only
a few that do not relate to the translation of Vitruvius’ original text and is a
clear personal additional comment. The footnote was the first instance that
questioned the rationalist view that there existed in ‘good’ architecture mathe-
matical relationships between its constituent parts that somehow emulate the
proportions of the human figure and universal laws. Furthermore, Perrault
asserted that these relationships were not verifiable by common observation;
therefore, they in fact, did not exist and the whole idea was a fable that had
gathered credence over time for no particular reason. In effect, Perrault con-
cluded that architectural form is best defined by consensus rather than absolute
truth. For Blondel, the accusation that absolute beauty did not exist was heresy
enough; however, the fact that Perrault had introduced his assertion into a
commentary on Vitruvius implied that architects had misunderstood their most
revered text for centuries. Thus, the battle of words began.

His own refutation of an architecture that lacked absolute principles was

obsessive. Three times he wrote in italics that the human intellect would be
terribly affected if it could not find stable and invariable principles. With-
out such principles, man could have no satisfactory idea of unity and
would be restless and anguished. Blondel was thus compelled to support
the traditional theory of proportion, one that provided “stable and invari-
able principles,” which in effect justified architecture’s raison d’être. He
categorically rejected relativism and senseless possibility.19
 Philosophical and stylistic debate 93
Underlying Blondel’s clear rationalistic perspective is essentially a belief that
Classical absolutes can be derived from a study of innate reason rather than
through experience. Blondel’s pursuit of this ‘reason’ led him to develop a his-
togram of Classical architecture from the eighteenth century back to Greek
Antiquity. The study formed a chapter in his seminal Cours, which was even-
tually published ten years later. The principle of imitation became the lectern
from which Blondel preached the ideology of the Académie, though it was
mixed with a desire to continually improve upon what had been done. For
Blondel, good architecture was a continual refinement of the best work by the
great architects.
Perrault accompanied his edition on Vitruvius with a treatise, Ordonnance
des Cinque Espèces de Colonnes 20 to justify his view. In the Ordonnance Per-
rault criticises contemporaneous architects for relying too heavily on the
antique: ‘everything of which they admire but principally the mystery of pro-
portions. … This excessive respect for the Antique stems, totally unreasonable
as it is, from the genuine respect due to holy things.’21 However, it was Blondel
who most ardently argued his perspective with text in his attempt to undermine
what he termed the ‘scandalous moderns’. His histogram of ‘good’ architecture
attempted to demonstrate how absolute principles developed from the primitive
model hut described by Vitruvius to the works of great architects of Ancient
Greece, Renaissance Italy and Neoclassical France.
Blondel drew copious diagrams coupled with long descriptive text to show
how rudimentary principles inherent in a simple hut were refined through the
ages; thus, he claimed that architecture is a development of original principles
and proportions. He also covered over ten pages with equations and dimensions
relating to architectural proportions of buildings by Vitruvius, Vignola, Palla-
dio and Scamozzi to demonstrate mathematical links between their buildings. A
title of one section of his Cours was, ‘Evidence that proportions are the cause
of architectural beauty and that beauty is found in kind, like that produced by
agreeable musicals’.22 Lastly, to personally attack Perrault, Blondel also quoted
vast sections of Vitruvius’ original Les Dix Livres d’Architecture, together with
a host of citations from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century followers to assume
that the great architects were allied with his ideology. The long rebuttal is
rather dull to read, and Blondel became known as a ‘boring academic’, espe-
cially when contrasted with the exuberant Perrault. The contrasting personal-
ities are best observed by directly comparing Blondel’s Cours with Perrault’s
Les dix Livre. Blondel’s text is long and dry; illustrations are often little more
than mathematical representations of architectural form (produced at a time
when a considerable value was placed on detailed and refined engravings), and
large swathes of writing are given over to equations and mathematical for-
mulae. Undoubtedly, Blondel’s ‘boring book’ contributed to him being over-
shadowed by Perrault during the time of the Querelle des Anciens et Modernes.
Conversely, Perrault’s book is engaging and contains many beautiful engrav-
ings. Although the quarrel divided French intellectualism on the issue of ancient
authority, Blondel’s dull approach did not help in his attempts to champion
 (a) (b) (c)

Figure 5.1a–c Engravings, Nicolas-François Blondel, Cours d’Architecture, Vol. 1, Plate 1. [a], Vol. 3 p. 752 & p. 794 [b and c]. Blondel endeavoured to
discover the universal principles that prevailed in all ‘good’ architecture. His quest took the form of a chronological chain of architecture,
which he argued, demonstrated a concatenation of architectural principles. The left figure is an engraving that shows Vitruvius’ primitive hut
and that the same essential proportions have been continued in Greek architecture. The middle figure is one example of Blondel’s attempt to
demonstrate the geometrical basis of Neoclassical architecture; thus, it is beautiful, not merely to the eye, but because it can be illustrated with
mathematical precision. The right figure is a list of dimensions and proportions relating to the range of Orders by Palladio. It is one of over ten
pages of measurements and equations that attempt to fuse together the works of the great architects with universal proportions.
 Philosophical and stylistic debate 95
rational absolutes. Where Perrault wrote little other than his Ordonnance to
justify his note on the absence of absolutes, his brother, Charles Perrault (1628–
1703), described the conflict between them and Blondel in four volumes entitled
Parallèle des Anciens et Modernes. 23 In it, Charles Perrault criticises Descartes’
Les Principes de la Philosophie. Descartes had claimed that human knowledge
contained certain axiomatic notions, ‘so clear in themselves that they cannot be
learnt, and are essentially innate’.24 The Perrault brothers rejected this view.
One year before Descartes had written this, Claude Perrault had noted that he,
‘distinguished a difference between theoretical and experimental physics,
emphasising the secondary value of conceptual systems or hypotheses postu-
lated a priori’.25 He went on to announce:

Truth is but the totality of phenomena that can lead us to the knowledge of
that which Nature wanted to hide. … It is an enigma to which we can give
a multitude of explanations, without ever expecting to find one that is
exclusively true.26

In the Ordonnance, Claude Perrault makes it clear that his central demand was
that architects should decide what proportions are most effective, even if these
proportions transgress against traditional examples. His claim was considerably
strengthened after Desgodets (a student of Blondel and who was made Pro-
fesseur of the Académie in 1714) published his Les Édifices Antiques de Rome in
1674, which, as Claude Perrault describes, demonstrated that ‘neither two
ancient buildings nor two authors agree with each other nor follow the same
rules’.27 On the central matter of the proportions of the Orders, particularly the
problem of the relationship between the entablature and the column, Claude
Perrault proposed to the Académie a more empirical standard, which was based
on the diameter of the column, two of which in each Order gave the height of
the entablature.28 The formula is a prime example of how the Perraults chose to
move away from systems advocated by the historical architectural giants and
instead championed flexible methods of organising architectural components.
The quarrel between the Perrault brothers and Blondel became most heated
on the matter of optical corrections, that is, whether the architect needed to
compensate for the distortion produced by viewing a building with the human
eye. Blondel argued that the architect’s duty to design optical corrections to
enhance or make more explicit the precise mathematical order otherwise dis-
torted by human optical perception could only derive from the architect’s inner
awareness. In this respect Blondel contradicted himself, and the Perrault
brothers were quick to point it out. It was accepted by both sides of the debate
that the ability of the human mind to appreciate the world and specifically
optical correctness is affected by cultural conditioning and life experiences;
therefore, if architectural correctness is identical for all people, and if human
perception of it varies, how can universally calculated Classicism be manipu-
lated to provide a system of order that would be identically and optically per-
fect for all people? Nevertheless, Blondel asserted,
96 Philosophical and stylistic debate

Figure 5.2 Claude Perrault, A Treatise of the Five Orders in Architecture. The image
portrays Perrault’s idea of a ‘module’, which dictated the proportions of an
Order and its relationship with the entablature. The module was equivalent
to one-third of the diameter of the column, and each Order increased in
height by two modules; thus, the Tuscan Order measured 22 modules, the
Doric 24, the Ionic 26, the Corinthian 28 and the Composite 30. The height
of the entablature was fixed at six modules for all Orders; however, the
pedestal increased in increments in the same way as the column height.

the successful determination of the real dimensions of a building, once the

increments and reductions of the original proportions had been considered,
was precisely the aspect that revealed the architect’s strength of intellect
(esprit): “The result depends more on the vivacity and genius of the archi-
tect than on any rule that might be established”.29
 Philosophical and stylistic debate 97
It was this ‘genius’ counterbalance that determined the distinctive difference
between the Perrault’s ‘phenomenalism’ and Blondel’s pursuit for universal
absolutes. The Perrault brothers believed that the human mind inherently cor-
rected visual discrepancies caused by the eye and that truth is that which is
perceived as truth based on an individual’s experiences. By contrast, Blondel
sought to establish absolute beauty as a common factor from a series of his-
torical examples, yet strangely also advocated the combining of universal rules
with the architect’s genius to produce the perfect perceived architecture. For
Blondel, addressing visual discrepancies was wholly reasonable, yet he surpris-
ingly offered very little philosophical justification for his view.
A similar problem was left unresolved by Descartes. The notion of doubt
that he attempted to address ultimately cannot survive as a system because
doubt has to doubt the process of doubt itself. As with Blondel’s conception of
optical correctness, the foundation for Descartes’ theory of deductive reason is
the assumption that all minds think alike. They must operate using the same
rational structures and function according to the same laws. Otherwise, if the
innate truth contained in one mind differs from that of another, or if the
rational structures used to reason from that knowledge were different from one
mind to another, how would one establish what is right or wrong? Descartes
recognised that cultural conditioning and life experiences affect the individual’s
intuitive apprehension of the world, but justified his philosophical stance with
his simplified belief that ‘God exists and He does not deceive us’.

I must consider at the first opportunity whether God exists, and, if he does,
whether He can be a deceiver, for without assurance on these two points I
do not see how it is possible to be certain of anything. On the contrary, as
the idea of God is particularly clear and distinct, and contains in itself more
objective reality than any other, there is none that is more true in itself, and
less open to the suspicion that it is false. God I judge to be infinite in act so
that nothing can be added to the sovereign perfection He possesses.30

Thus, it is the conviction that humankind shares a similarity of mind that

caused both Blondel and Descartes to falter in their philosophical arguments on
the existence of truth. The Académie eventually dropped the idea of seeking to
define ‘good taste’ by studying the works and writings of the historical archi-
tectural elite, mostly because their exhaustive studies simply revealed the fallibi-
lity of those that they held in such high esteem rather than a common
understanding that they collectively held and which alluded to a form of perfect
architecture. In effect, it was shown that ‘great minds do not always think alike’.

Notes
1 Roberts, J. M., The Penguin History of Europe, Penguin Books, London, 1997, p. 268.
2 Ibid., pp. 260–7.
98 Philosophical and stylistic debate
3 Newton, Isaac, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 2 Vols., London,
1803, Vol. 1, pp. 6ff.
4 Roberts, History of Europe, p. 268
5 The philosophical approach adhered to by the French during the seventeenth century
is often known as Continental Rationalism because it was generally held in con-
tinental European nations.
6 Descartes, René, Discourse on Method and Other Writings, trans. Arthur Wollaston,
Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, 1960, pp. 36–7.
7 Ibid., p. 43.
8 Descartes, René, The Philosophical Works of Descartes, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1985, vol 1, p. 442.
9 Descartes, Discourse on Method, p. 36.
10 The term mathemata literally means ‘matters learnt’, though its definition was
refined in late antiquity to encompass four disciplines; arithmetic, geometry, music
and astronomy. The English term mathematics and the meaning that is familiar to us
today was coined during the eighteenth century when a rapid expansion of scientific
knowledge led to a broader selection of more specific terms.
11 Salençon, Jean, Galileo to Convexity: Some Key Ideas in Structural Mechanics,
AIMS Workshop on Capacity Building in the Mathematical Sciences. Muizenberg
(South Africa), 13–17 April 2004, p. 1. quoting Galileo Galilei, Letters to Fr. Vin-
cenzo Renieri (1606–1647).
12 Descartes, Discourse on Method, p. 49.
13 Ibid., p. 50.
14 Herrmann, ‘Antoine Desgodets and the Académie Royale d’Architecture’, p. 47.
15 Kisacky, Jeanne, ‘History and Science: Julien-David Leroy’s Dualistic Method of
Architectural History’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 60,
No. 3, 2001, p. 2.
16 Empiricism (the term derives from the Latin empeiria, meaning experience) advo-
cated the acquisition of knowledge through sensual experience. The notion became
more credible in France during the turn of the eighteenth century, though an interest
in sensual precepts had existed in Britain during the same time as Rationalism had
prevailed in France. The philosophy was pioneered by John Lock (1632–1704),
George Berkeley (1685–1753) and David Hume (1711–1776), all of whom in turn
rested their theories on the founding thoughts of the philosopher Francis Bacon
(1561–1626).
17 Picon, Antonie, French Architects and Engineers in the Enlightenment, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1992, p. 30.
18 Perrault, Claude, Les Dix Livres d’Architecture de Vitruve, corrigez & traduits
nouvellement en François, avec des notes & des figures, Paris, Jean Baptiste
Coignard, Second edition, 1684, 12, n. 3. Perrault’s view was made known in the first
edition of his translation of Vitruvius; however, opposition appears to be voiced only
after the release of the second edition.
19 Pérez-Gómez, Alberto, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, Sixth edition,
MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., 1992, p. 47.
20 Perrault, Claude, Ordonnance des Cinq Espèces de Colonnes Selon la Méthode des
Anciens, Paris, 1683.
21 Perrault, Ordonnance, p. XVII.
22 Blondel Cours d’Architecture, Vol. V, Section XVI.
23 Perrault, Charles, Parallèle des Anciens et Modernes, Paris, 1692.
24 Descartes, Les Principes de la Philosophie, p. 23.
25 Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, p. 26, citing Claude
and Charles Perrault, Oeuvres Diversus de Physique et de Méchanique.
26 Ibid.
27 Perrault, Ordonnance, p. 11.
 Philosophical and stylistic debate 99
28 A strict proportional equation, which could be applied to all the Orders, could not
be agreed at the Académie; thus, it continued to discuss Vitruvius’ method of divid-
ing the columns into three classes according to their height. Each class was given an
entablature of a different height increasing with the height of the column (Vitruvius,
Book III, p. 3.)
29 Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, p. 41; and in part the
citation of Riche de Prony, Notice Historique sur Jean-Rodolphe Perronet, Paris,
1829.
30 Descartes, Discourse on Method, pp. 119, 128 & 129.
6 The Professional Expression of the
Académie’s Ideology

The architectural profession

In the essay, ‘Antoine Desgodets and the Académie Royale d’Architecture’,
Herrmann claims ‘in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries all the great
French architects belonged to the academic body, and they all subscribed to the
common theoretical foundation’.1 It appears on face value that Herrmann’s
assertion holds true. Membres of the Académie undertook almost all of the
more notable examples of late seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century
French architectural designs including: façades to the Louvre, Paris (1667–1674
by Louis Le Vau, Claude Perrault and Charles Le Brun); alterations to Ver-
sailles including the Galerie des Glaces (1678 by Jules Hardouin-Mansart);
plans for the total reconstruction of Versailles (unrealised) and other smaller
alterations, namely, the Salle d’Opera and the Petit Trianon (1742 by Ange-
Jacques Gabriel); the Gros Pavillon, Fontainebleau (1750–1754 also by Gabriel);
Les Invalides, Paris (initially designed by Libéral Bruand though adapted by
Jules Hardouin-Mansart who also added the Dôme de Invalides (1680)); and
Sainte Geneviève (known as the Panthéon after the Revolution), Paris (1757–
1790 by Jacques-Germain Soufflot). However, to further test Herrmann’s
assertion requires a compilation of notable architects who practised during the
existence of the Académie to ascertain what proportion of these architects were
Membres of the Académie. Of the architects and architectural workers men-
tioned in the pages of some of the more reliable studies on French architects
and architecture at the time of the Académie (including Kalnein’s Architecture
in France of the Eighteenth Century, Picon’s French Architects and Engineers in
the Age of Enlightenment and Blunt’s Art & Architecture in France 1500–1700),
around 80 per cent were either Membres or had been students at the Acadé-
mie.2 Thus it appears Herrmann’s statement is to an extent hyperbolic. A few
very renowned architects are absent from the list of Membres; the most obvious
are, Marc-Antoine Laugier (1713–1769) and Claude Perrault (although Per-
rault’s membership is a matter of dispute).3 Many others were still affiliated
with the guilds or family trades. None of the Mansart family of architects and
masons, for instance, were trained at the Académie;4 their skills were passed on
by successive generations. Furthermore, many students of the Académie, such as
 Professional expression of ideology 101
Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760–1834) and Jacques Gondouin, left upon graduation
and had little relationship with it thereafter, preferring instead to focus on pri-
vate commissions or positions at other institutions.5
One of the most famous contributors to the profession of architecture during
the eighteenth century who had no known ties to the Académie was the Jesuit
priest Marc-Antoine Laugier. His Essai sur l’Architecture and Observations sur
l’Architecture, published in 1753 and 1765 respectively, were immediate best
sellers. Pérez-Gómez describes Laugier as ‘the most influential theoretician of
French Neoclassicism’.6 This influence is because Laugier’s texts are some of the
first to incorporate architecture into wider epistemological debates of the day;
thus, expanding the concerns of architecture from the function and decoration
of buildings to an important component of philosophical and intellectual
worldviews. Laugier believed that there existed in all things a logic and cor-
rectness that brought coherence to culture. He was particularly keen to use
architecture as a medium to argue his beliefs, as he saw it to be an ‘activity that
appeared increasingly in crisis because of its lack of principles’.7 Laugier’s
rationalistic view of architecture was simply one facet of his rationalistic view
of mathemata in general: ‘every art or science has a definitive objective. There is
only one way of doing things right’.8 Concerning architects, he believed that
they should be able to argue, with logic, the beauty of their work; thus, reason
that defines beauty ‘needs fixed principles to determine his [the architects] jud-
gements and justify his choices’.9 Having set the challenge, Laugier attempted to
join the hunt for the principles that make beautiful architecture. However,
despite his bold and confident proclamations, his ‘experiments’ were vague, far
from conclusive, and simply demonstrated that he found it just as difficult to
capture and define architectural beauty as the Académie. Regardless, Laugier
sought to explain his beliefs by referring to his now famous primitive hut ana-
logy. The model, derived from Vitruvius’ earlier hut, attempts to describe a
purely rational approach to architecture that is neither a case of formulating
rules nor accepts the whims of an individual.10 Laugier argued that true rational
architecture derives from the most basic undecorated structural arrangements,
which represents an ideal governed by the laws of nature. From the natural hut
arrangement, Laugier extracted a principle that all non-structural elements,
such as pilasters, were mere ‘decoration’ and considered ‘bastards’. Likewise,
Laugier declared that a gable or pediment should only be used on the narrow
side of a building and had no place adjacent to the eaves. A double gable was
considered by Laugier as two roofs resting on top of one another, an unnatural
state and therefore wrong. However, Laugier reserved his most damning criti-
cism for instances where pediments were placed above the main entrance and
beneath a cornice, as this gave the impression of constructing the roof beneath
the ceiling.
Though Laugier’s arguments left many questions unanswered, his Essai was
widely studied. It was always going to be favoured by the Académie as Lau-
gier’s belief that good proportion is ‘derived from an ordered and harmonious
nature whose mathemata could be evidently perceived by man’ was entirely
102 Professional expression of ideology
aligned with Blondel’s convictions. Pérez-Gómez notes that ‘his “essential ele-
ments” became the favourite forms of Neoclassical architecture, and his ideal
church was obviously the germ of Soufflot’s Sainte Geneviève’.11
Most people who contributed to the profession of architecture and who had
little or no connection with the Académie made their contributions nearer the
end of the Académie’s life. Durand published his Recueil in 1800, his Précis
from 1802 to 1805, and was the professor at the École Polytechnique from 1796
to 1833. Although he enjoyed early success under the patronage of Boullée, it
was at the École Polytechnique after the Académie had closed that Durand
offered his most significant involvement to architectural professionalism. Like-
wise, Laugier published his two architectural treatises in 1753 and 1765. Louis-
Jean Desprez, who had studied at the Académie and was awarded the Grand
Prix in 1770 moved to Sweden for the last twenty years of his career. His
magnificent Neoclassical design for a royal palace at Haga Park, Sweden (par-
tially built) and the Villa Frescati were both undertaken at the very end of the
eighteenth century. Again, Léon Dufourny’s (1754–1818) contribution to archi-
tecture was made during the final days of the Académie; his studies of ancient
Greek temples in Sicily were undertaken in 1787 and 1794. Similarly, Gabriel-
Pierre-Martin Dumont (1720–1791), Pierre François Léonard Fontaine (1762–
1853), Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757–1826), Pierre Patte and Charles Percier
(1764–1838) all played their roles in the story of architecture during the latter
half of the eighteenth century, near the end of the Académie’s life.
There is no apparent reason why some individuals operated outside of the
Académie. The Procès-Verbaux does not record any grievances or disagree-
ments between it and the individuals who made significant contributions to the
history of French eighteenth-century architecture, but did so away from the
Académie’s confines; indeed, the Académie often welcomed contributions by
non-academicians. Thus, one is left to suppose that these ‘outsiders’ did not see
the Académie as holding exclusive rights to architectural debate and were con-
tent not be part of what was often regarded an elitist organisation.
One notable character who generally operated outside of the Académie, yet
was often on the receiving end of its criticism, was Claude Perrault. His formal
relationship with the Académie is unclear, but it is evident that many of the
other academicians did not share some of his views. The Académie’s criticism
towards Perrault for his translation of Les Dix Livres d’Architecture de Vitruve
continued when the scientist turned his attention in 1664 to designing archi-
tecture. His Arc de Triomphe du Faubourg Saint Antoine, designed and par-
tially constructed in 1670 received perhaps the most vigorous onslaught the
Académie had ever written. The ‘decorations’ on the arch were described as
‘not intended to eternalise the king’s glory’, and the monument generally was
considered ‘suitable for festival construction’, in other words, merely a tem-
porary structure.12 However, Perrault’s small, but significant collection of built
work is important to eighteenth-century French architecture.13 Perrault’s con-
tribution to the design for the Eastern façade of the Louvre, for example,
received enormous publicity at the time, and his Arc de Triomphe du Faubourg
 Professional expression of ideology 103
Saint Antoine was a matter of discussion at the Académie for over fifteen years.
Perrault’s contribution to the Louvre is complicated, and the extent to which he
had an impact on the design is unclear. When Louis XIV began to award
architectural commissions, most of the Louvre, as it then stood, was from the
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, though the construction work had
never been fully completed.14 Louis Le Vau, the king’s first architect, had been
previously commissioned to redesign the Grande Cour du Louvre and had fin-
ished his designs for the South wing façade in 1660. Construction began
immediately, and the entire southern portion of the Louvre had been built by
1664.
Meanwhile, from 1659 to 1663 Louis Le Vau designed the new Eastern
entrance façade; however, shortly before construction was due to begin, Colbert,
upon assuming the position of Surintendant des Bâtiments, suddenly halted the
work on 1 January 1664. Colbert never gave a reason for his decision (which
must have received the approval of the king), although Le Vau’s design was
rather odd. A central drum-shaped pavilion without a dome was capped with an
oculus, which permitted the main vestibule below to be open to the elements,
probably as a reference to the Sun King. An observer was left only to imagine a
wide drum without a dome. To the humiliation of Le Vau, Colbert then pro-
ceeded to invite other architects to submit new designs and sent all interested
parties a copy of Le Vau’s rejected proposals. Of the designs received two are of
particular note; the first was submitted anonymously by Claude Perrault, then
purely known as a physician and scientist (the design has been lost); and the
second by a relative of Le Vau, François Le Vau. François Le Vau’s design
mimicked Louis Le Vau’s Southern Louvre elevation with the tall double column
arrangement across the whole elevation. Similarly, a central pavilion was capped
with a pedimented attic, and the two bays were ended with protruding blocks
with mansard roofs. Again, the entire ensemble was held together by a high base
with rusticated corners. Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), the most noted Italian
architect of his day, also submitted a design; however, it closely resembled Louis
Le Vau’s design, and after further proposals and a stately visit lasting four
months, Colbert finally rejected Bernini outright. In April 1667 Colbert decided
to form a panel of architects comprising Perrault, Louis Le Vau and Le Brun,
known as the Petit Conseil, to collectively design the Eastern façade. Their first
design, which was submitted within two months, was deemed acceptable and so
to keep up with development elsewhere on the Louvre, construction started in the
summer of the same year. The collaborative design was a close resemblance of
François Le Vau’s initial design; the tall double columns are evident, as are the
pedimented central pavilion with a domed roof, the mansard-roofed end pavi-
lions, and the massif base with rusticated corners. Even specific details such as
motifs above windows between the paired columns and with the loggias share a
considerable likeness. During the construction process, the design was refined,
and later drawings have been attributed to Perrault, suggesting that he might
have taken a lead role in the final stages of design. However, whereas Perrault is
often given credit for the colonnade, it is more accurate to consider the work as a
104 Professional expression of ideology
collaborative effort. To complement the new elevation, the Petit Conseil also
designed a new southern façade that faced the Seine, which completely obscured
Louis Le Vau’s recently built front.
Although it is unclear as to the precise extent of Perrault’s involvement in the
design work at the Louvre, that Perrault became a competent, if late starting,
architect is in no doubt. His design for the Observatoire Royal in Paris, which
started in 1667, was an excellent opportunity for the scientist to prove himself.
The building, inside and out, is austere, making it immediately unusual, espe-
cially given that it was built at a time when classical orders and rich decora-
tions were the fashion of the day. In contrast to the Eastern Façade of the
Louvre, the Observatoire Royal has no columns or pilasters, and decoration is
confined to two reliefs of scientific instruments (removed) and a balustrade at
roof level. The octagonal corner towers hark back to medieval forts, but the
internal halls and circulation areas are spacious and formed by beautifully
crafted cut curved stone. It remains an irony that Perrault, whose theoretical
ideas and architectural proposals were so vehemently criticised by the Acadé-
mie, played such an important role in the designing of royal buildings. His
selection is almost certainly because Claude Perrault’s brother was Charles
Perrault, the first clerk to Colbert since 1664.
Perrault’s built achievements are made more exceptional in the light of his
non-architectural upbringing. He is perhaps the best example of his day that
demonstrates the extent to which the architectural profession lacked any
coherent regulation system or formal connection with the Académie. No

Figure 6.1 The Louvre (Eastern façade), Paris. Claude Perrault, Louis Le Vau and
Charles Le Brun (Roland Fréart de Chambray joined the Petit Conseil in
1668). The final design comprised a broader central pavilion with four paired
columns supporting a pediment.
 Professional expression of ideology 105
register of architects or formal architectural entry system existed until the
nineteenth century; thus, it is difficult to accurately establish either what an
Architect was or how many of them there were.
The ‘profession of architecture’ was effectively conceived with the introduc-
tion of the Académie d’Architecture, although the establishment of a profession
was never an intention of the institution and the two entities were never legally
connected. However, the first indication of an independent body of architects
came on 7 March 1676 when the king announced that only a selected number
chosen from the Académie were permitted to use the term Architecte du Roi.

Several master masons, entrepreneurs and others involved in the building

industry, without any right, assume for themselves the title architect of the
King in order to accredit themselves, formulate designs and construct
buildings of all forms, both public and private, and which are often of a
poor quality. … His Majesty the King forbids all such master masons,
entrepreneurs and others to assume the title of architect of the King, apart
from those whom he has chosen to form part of his Academy of
Architecture.15

The edict triggered a move that not only protected architects who repre-
sented the king, but also a more extensive body of professionals who practised
architecture under the umbrella of the Académie. The Académie, by means of
its existence, effectively enabled the architectural profession to become a dis-
tinct institution; thus, the profession was formed because the architectural
Académie came to represent it.
Although the number of Membres at the Académie grew only nominally
during the eighteenth century, the term Architect became widespread, and so
the Académie came to represent a body of people, which was generally
accountable to its authority. Thus, the role of the Académie became ambiguous;
on the one hand, it served the state, while on the other, it represented an inde-
pendent profession. An academician was caught between ‘the need to win
recognition from the prince and that of maintaining one’s independence’.16 The
few reliable treatises that touch on the French architectural profession during
the time of the Académie d’Architecture tend to use the words ‘profession’ and
‘Academy’ interchangeably. Picon captures the uncertain relationship between
the architectural profession and the Académie; ‘it was never wholly clear whe-
ther the latter [the Académie] addressed itself for preference to the state or to
professional practice’.17 Thus, whilst the Académie could not claim to have
complete control of the architectural profession, it did act as the profession’s
public face.
Irrespective of whether an architect was an Membre of the Académie or not,
most architects still had close connections with the institution. The lecture
courses it ran were well attended by architects, not just from Paris, but also
from all over France, and even other European nations.18 Non-academician
architects were often called upon as guest lecturers and competitions’ judges.
106 Professional expression of ideology
Pierre Patte, a non-academician architect, was so familiar with the workings of
the Académie when Blondel was the director that he finished the fifth chapter to
the Cours after Blondel’s death.
Although very little has been documented on the relationship between the
architectural profession and the Académie (Herrmann, and to a lesser extent
Egbert, are the only authors to have made any attempt to raise the matter), by
observing the behaviour of the Académie it appears that it came to represent the
emerging architectural profession during the eighteenth century, and was
undoubtedly the main protagonist of architectural debate. The Académie set the
agenda on how architects should be trained and was always the first institution
to be consulted by the king and others with the financial and political means to
develop areas of Paris. It effectively pulled together many professionals who had
established their role in the building industry before the inauguration of the
Académie and provided its Membres with protection through legal decrees. The
more humdrum domestic architects, builders and contractors of the time often
approached the Académie for technical advice and at times of disagreement so
that the Académie could act as arbitrator or judge. The lack of any other
impetus to join together architects under a common banner or heighten the
profile of the architectural profession also speaks for itself; no attempt to form
a rival institution was made during the Académie’s existence, suggesting either
that the profession was represented enough through the Académie or that to
challenge the Académie’s domination of the profession was a futile pursuit.
As the social status of the Architect and prestige associated with the archi-
tectural profession increased during the eighteenth century, so the number of
contributors to architecture, irrespective of whether they were significantly
involved with the Académie, followed suit. Although the grandeur associated
with architecture began to subside during the Industrial Revolution, by the
dawn of the nineteenth century the profession was still akin to the legal and
medical professions. Given that the importance of the architectural profession
increased so considerably during the eighteenth century, the Académie must at
least be apportioned some of the credit; after all, its primary purpose was to
shed light on architectural problems and propagate its new found wisdom.

French eighteenth-century architectural style

An analysis of architectural style can run the risk of either over-simplification
or extreme definition; however, though its usefulness fades upon scrutiny, an
overview of French eighteenth-century architecture is given below to provide
some context before discussing the built work by Membres of the Académie.
In his book Architecture in France in the Eighteenth Century, Kalnein
endeavours to summarise French architecture of the Grand Siècle as being, dis-
tinguished from that of other countries by its quality of restraint and propor-
tion, and by the inner consistency that is maintained from one generation to the
next. People looked to it, not for the supreme achievements of individual genius
but sureness of taste and a combination of outward grace, socially apt form and
 Professional expression of ideology 107
practical utility. Its hallmark is pragmatism: excess and exuberance are foreign
to its nature.19 All French architecture of the eighteenth century was of a clas-
sical aesthetic. There was never any serious attempt to create a radically dif-
ferent architectural style outside of the confines of a classical tradition.
However, the era is far from stylistically straightforward. The bounds of
acceptable classicism were challenged by what amounted to three distinct styles
that merged from one to another, but at times were distinct enough to acquire
some definition.
The first style was a form of restrained French Baroque pioneered by Jules
Hardouin-Mansart from around 1700, but which lasted for at least twenty years
after his death in 1708 and continued to influence architecture to a lesser degree
for many generations after. Mansart was appointed Surintendant des Bâtiments
in 1699 and as such was responsible for the Académie Royale d’Architecture
and all royal building work. Together with his brother-in-law, Robert de Cotte
(1656–1735), who was second in charge at the building department, Mansart
propagated a version of his great-uncle’s stylistic taste and imposed it upon all
he controlled. His buildings avoided the use of architectural elements such as
columns and heavy cornices, and were more monolithic in form, with dec-
orative motifs such as window surrounds and wrought iron balconies on
sculptured consoles. After his appointment as Surintendant, the outbreak of the
War of the Spanish Succession meant he designed only two non-residential
projects before his death, both of which were ecclesiastical. The Chapelle de la
Vierge at the Saint-Roch in Paris was a small circular addition to the rear of a
church initially designed by Jacques Lemercier (1585–1654), although Mansart
died before his contribution was complete and it was finished by Pierre Bullet.
The design was significantly diluted, and much of Mansart’s detailing was
omitted which led to the chapel becoming a dark and uninviting appendage.
The second scheme suffered a similar fate. When Mansart was asked to resolve
a dispute over a design for the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l’Annonciation (also
known as the Primatiale) at Nancy he just submitted his own design. It was
again drastically altered after his death; a huge dome was entirely omitted and
replaced with a third storey frontispiece by Germain Boffrand (1667–1754),
although enough survives to see Mansart’s trademark restrained use of classical
language and limited, yet flamboyant detailing. However, it was a string of
homes for the wealthy, and his work at Versailles, that brought Mansart his
fame, although while serving as Surintendant he only designed one house from
scratch, the Château Neuf, later destroyed by fire.
After Mansart died, de Cotte was appointed Surintendant and continued to
lead the department in much the same vein as his brother-in-law until his death
in 1735. The departure of these characters paved the way for the second dis-
cernible style evident in French architecture during the eighteenth century, the
Rococo. It evolved from Baroque interiors (which were never as restrained as
their outer shells) and became distinct enough to be recognised as an architectural
style in its own right soon after the emergence of the Baroque. However, it was
108 Professional expression of ideology

Figure 6.2 Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Château Neuf, 1706–1709, front façade and plan.
Destroyed by fire in 1795 and again in 1871. The Château Neuf is typical of
the Baroque style propagated by Jules Hardouin-Mansart at the building
department; the house design influenced most leading French architects
during the first half of the eighteenth century such as de Cotte (Château des
Rohan, 1727–1742), Germain Boffrand (Château de la Malgrange 1712–1715
& Lunéville 1709–1715), Alexis Delamair (Hôtel de Soubise 1704–1797), and
Jean Aubert (Chantilly stables 1721–1735).

from around 1730 to 1755 that the style became fashionable with some parts of
the French aristocracy, although its presence was never exclusive.
One of the earliest examples of the Rococo style was a bastardised interior
design for the Château de la Ménagerie (1698–1700, destroyed in 1801). The
Château had been built in 1664 by Le Vau, but was amended and extended by
Mansart for the thirteen-year-old fiancée of Louis XIV’s eldest grandson. The
king noted that the interior design was too austere for the young lady and was
therefore adorned with an ornamental design depicting animals and swirly
grasses. In 1699 a similar design had been applied to the king’s own apartment
at Marley, and in 1701 a distinctive ornamental design appeared at Versailles.
The Rococo was an experimental form of classicism known for its distinct
natural forms; the name derives from rocaille, meaning rocks and shells,
although the term came into use at the close of the eighteenth century and was
never officially recognised as a title for the style until 1842.20 Its flamboyance is
inventive and highly ornamental, though the style in France was generally deli-
cate compared to some extremes examples found in other European countries
of the time. Lovers of the French style, such as Emmanuel Héré, praise it for its
 Professional expression of ideology 109
‘lightness and poetry’, whilst antagonists, such as Pierre Patte and Jacques-
François Blondel, regarded it as ‘eccentric and chaotic’.
By the 1730s the French nobility was less inclined to flout its wealth, and in
any case, many had less wealth to flout. Even the king moved from his Grand
Appartements to the Petits Appartements. Rooms became more intimate and
were grouped for comfortable living rather than display; the château became a
place to benefit the dweller rather than to entertain the visitor. With the exter-
ior marked by simplicity and the interior becoming seen as providing comfor-
table living, architectural interest moved from outside to inside. In place of
constructing new hotels and châteaux, the nobility chose to redecorate their
apartments. As the makeover movement gained pace during the 1750s, so the
excesses of ornament prevailed. Dragons and monsters sprang up on balconies,
and curves of all form embellished corners, junctions and surfaces. The dec-
oration mania was met with fierce criticism headed by François-Marie Aroutet
Voltaire 1694–1778 and Blondel. However, the architectural supremacy of the
Rococo subsided during the 1750s, not merely because of the work of its critics,
but because a new style emerged that was a response to a mix of political,
military, financial, philosophical and artistic forces that developed in France at
that time.
This third distinct style to surface during the eighteenth century France was
an intellectually inspired form of Neoclassicism that dominated the archi-
tectural scene as of about 1755 and continued throughout the second half of the
eighteenth century. The style developed as Louis XV’s fame, which had risen to
its height during the 1740s, was curtailed by a series of military decisions that
brought disaster to the Seven Years War (1756–1763) and the naval war against
Britain (1755–1763). Colonies in America and India were lost, and at home,
conflict broke out between the crown and the Parlements, which resulted in the
dissolution of the Parlement de Paris in 1771. At the same time, an intellectual
crisis grew as writers critical of the monarchy and the church moved to present
the Enlightenment. Voltaire wrote Essai sur les moeurs (1751), a history on
social morality in which he famously states ‘the Holy Roman Empire is neither
holy, nor Roman, nor an empire’. His Deistic, antireligious, and antimonarchic
views are further expressed in his Traité sur la tolerance (1764) and Diction-
naire Philosophie (1764), which were accompanied by Rousseau’s Discours sur
l’origine de l’inégalité (1753) and Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie (1751–
1777). The latter gave a rational explanation to all things, thus, condemning the
notion of an absolute monarchy and the Church. The Clergy further aroused
hostility by resisting all attempts to change the taxation system that stemmed
from the nation’s costly military engagements and which weighed heavy upon
French citizens.
Enlightenment thinking profoundly influenced architectural style during the
middle of the century. Beauty was replaced by a notion of utility, and aesthetic
profligacy gave way to a concern to demonstrate structural logic. The shift from
the Rococo to a revival of Greek taste known as the goût grec, which was
coupled with a Palladian aesthetic (though not to the same extent as in Britain)
110 Professional expression of ideology
and became more widely referred to as eighteenth-century Neoclassicism, was
thus intellectually and culturally motivated rather than merely an aesthetic
preference. However, the turning point that most affected French architecture of
the time was the appointment of Abel-François Poisson (1727–1781), better
known as the Marquis de Marigny, as Directeur-Generale of the Bâtiments du
Roi in 1751. After a two-year visit to Italy with Jacques-Germain Soufflot
(1713–1780) and the art critic Jean-Bernard, Abbé Le Blanc (1707–1781), the
Marquis returned to Paris a staunch adversary of the Rococo and ensured his
intellectual and aesthetic persuasions marked French architecture until his death
in 1781.
The goût grec style was specific to a French revival of ancient Greek classi-
cism and existed during the 1750s and 1760s. It is characterised by severe and
austere rectilinear forms with crude Greek detailing. However, as a style, it was
overshadowed by the more refined and elegant work of Ange-Jacques Gabriel
(1698–1782) who dominated French architecture during the second half of the
eighteenth century, and so too, but to a lesser extent, Soufflot.21 Gabriel’s first
substantial royal commission was to restore parts of the Louvre that had dete-
riorated into a dangerous state and provide designs for new uses that could be
housed at the abandoned palace. Although some work started (the addition of a
new storey to the Eastern range and Eastern end of the North range that form
the Cour du Louvre, 1775–1758) it was halted by the outbreak of the Seven
Years War, and in 1768 all plans involving the Louvre were abandoned. How-
ever, the project was a convenient springboard for two subsequent schemes, the
Place Louis-XV (now known as the Place de la Concorde, 1753–1775) and the
École Militaire (1768–1773). Both buildings are examples of French eighteenth-
century Neoclassicism. They use pedimented pavilions with Corinthian Orders
and continue Mansart’s interest in simple block forms, with restrained embel-
lishment to window surrounds and a handful of motifs. The Place École Mili-
taire is more conservative, perhaps because of its humble clientele, but is typical
of the Neoclassical style.22 The smooth walls with regular window punctuation
and simple block form are saved from appearing drab by a light projecting
central temple portico with Palladian-esque statues and a square-based dome.
Gabriel influenced a string of architects; his most notable disciples were Nico-
las-Henri Potain (1713–1791),23 Jacques-Denis Antoine (1733–1801), Jean-Vin-
cent Barré (1730–1788), and Richard Mique (1728–1794). Perhaps the most
masterful was Antoine whose greatest Neoclassical work was the Hôtel de la
Monnaie, or Mint (1771–1777). The Parisian mint demonstrates the sharp con-
trasts of the Baroque and Rococo styles with late eighteenth-century French
Neoclassicism.
In Neoclassicism, ornament is reduced to strict and simple lines, details are
light and delicate, yet monumentality and grandeur are retained by the scale of
architectural elements (such as the double-height Orders) and rhythmic fenes-
tration. But not even Antoine’s mastery can eclipse the largest and most noted
of all French Neoclassical buildings, Soufflot’s Sainte Geneviève, Paris. The
church was built to replace an ancient abbey, which collapsed in 1754. The
 Professional expression of ideology 111
Greek cross plan was the first of its type in France and appears externally
deceptively simple. However, the complex structural system comprises a myriad
of arches and vaults and the four arms of the cruciform plan comprised four
domed compartments with domes above pendentives, each surrounded by four
short sections of tunnel vault and supported at each corner by four columns in
a square. The outcome caused widespread praise, Laugier called it ‘the first
model of perfect architecture’. However, the ideal scheme suffered many
alterations during the construction process to meet with the clergy’s practical
requirements; the western arm and choir was lengthened, two bell towers were
added, a crypt was added, and the dome was amended many times until 1777
when a design modelled on St. Paul’s in London was agreed. When Soufflot died
the external shell was almost complete, but the internal decorations had not yet
been started. This element of work was continued by Quatremère de Quincy
(1755–1849) who tragically ordered the blocking up of windows, removing the
bell towers, destroying sculptures, and removing a relief that aligned the pedi-
ments. Finally, structural problems led to massive piers being added to all cor-
ners; the result is a dark and heavy block quite removed from Soufflot’s original
design.
During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, French architecture further
responded to a new, more intensive set of political, financial and intellectual
forces. Neoclassicism remained, but in the form of a romantic variant. Marigny
resigned in 1773, Jacques-François Blondel died in 1774 and was succeeded as
Professeur of the Académie by Le Roy, and Gabriel retired in 1775. At the same
time, France’s financial situation had become desperate, and many public
building construction sites ground to a halt. Furthermore, the Enlightenment’s
intellectual emancipation led to demands for social and cultural institutions
rather than churches or royal affirmations of wealth. The idea of a new and
better world based on a Rousseauian human response to nature gripped the
French nation. The concept of objectivity began to be disregarded, and archi-
tecture became an expression of emotional experience rather than a rational
ideal. Architects no longer sought to glorify the state, the monarchy or the
church, but aspired to create monuments that would tell of the greatness of
humankind. It was this utopian outlook captured in Romantic Neoclassicism
that, mixed with the obstructive behaviour of the Parlements, ultimately led to
the Revolution at the end of the century and the abolition of the Ancien
Régime.
The first significant designs to emerge within this new cultural outlook were
for a competition to greatly expand Versailles, the Grand Project (competition
set in 1783).24 Though France’s financial state prevented any building on a
grand scale, Boullée’s entry shows a vast building comprising elevations that
were uniform to the point of monotony. The design, though affiliated with
royalty, is an early example of the new Romantic Neoclassical style. What dif-
ferentiated earlier Neoclassicism from its new Romantic form is the romantic’s
response to an encounter with a wave of exotic cultures that brought with them
different ideas on beauty that did not relate to ancient Greece or Rome.
112 Professional expression of ideology
By 1780 a clique of influential architects, principally Boullée and Ledoux, had
started to continue their newfound appreciation of beauty to utopian extremes.
Platonic geometric forms entirely devoid of ornament were used to emphasise a
severance from aristocratic society and emulated the growing enlightenment
ideology that culminated in the Revolution.

Built work undertaken by Membres of the Académie

The ideology of the Académie closely resembled contemporaneous French
architecture. Eighteenth-century architecture undertaken by leading ideological
proponents of the Académie was generally of a restrained classical style. The
Académie never favoured the more flamboyant strains of Baroque and Rococo
architecture. Thus, it was during the latter half of the century that buildings
produced by Membres of the Académie became more consistent with French
architectural style of the time. However, as to whether architectural style
resulted from discussions held at the Académie or vice versa is difficult to
ascertain. The relationship between the Académie and French architecture is
perhaps best evaluated by examining the built work undertaken by the membres
of the Académie who had the most sway over its ideological trajectory, the
Professeurs.
Although Blondel played an essential role in the history of architecture, only
four of his buildings were ever built, one of which is destroyed. The small
portfolio of built work is in part because his attention turned to architecture
when he was fifty-two years of age. Furthermore, when he became Directeur of
the Académie, he spent most of his time lecturing and writing his Cours. Blon-
del’s most important work was the Porte Saint-Denis, Paris, 1673. The monu-
ment sits at the junction of rue Saint-Denis and rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis. It
was commissioned by Louis XIV to commemorate military victories along the
Rhine and the taking of Besançon in Franche Comté. Reliefs sculpted by Michel
Anguier on the North and South façades illustrate the victories. The classical
mood at the Académie was expressed in architectural form through clear and
rational order, and the refined aesthetics of the Porte Saint-Denis is emblematic
of Blondel’s rationalistic stance.
Its mass is restrained and proportional; in plan, the arch measures three by
one units while in elevation it measures three by three units with the centre of
the arch central to the façade (Blondel notes that he designed the monument to
be seventy-two feet high).25 Pockets of detailed ornament tell the victorious
stories; otherwise, the smooth ashlar stone is only decorated with a simple
dentil and restrained cornices, architraves and pedestals. The distinctive obe-
lisk-shaped protrusions were a novel design feature of the time and even pro-
voked Quatremère de Quincy to question its beauty when defining ‘Obelisk’ in
his Dictionnaire Historique d’Architecture. The commentary on the design of
the arch found in Blondel’s Cours refers to ancient Egyptian and Roman influ-
ences, citing the reliefs on Trajan’s Column in Rome particularly.26 In this
respect Blondel was quite ahead of his time; although the design was generally
 Professional expression of ideology 113

(a) (b)

Figure 6.3a–b Nicolas-François Blondel, Porte Saint Denis (South façade), Paris, built
1673. Engraving, Nicolas-François Blondel, Architecture Françoise ou
Recueil des Plans, Elevations, Coupes et Profiles, Vol. 3, Plate 310 (left);
Photograph (right).

akin to the Baroque aesthetic, the inclusion of Egyptian imagery was rare in
France before the dawn of Neoclassicism during the latter half of the eighteenth
century. However, the origin of the design (as with all triumphal arches) is the
Arch of Titus, the oldest surviving arch in Rome. The monument was later
accompanied by another arch, the Porte Saint-Martin by Pierre Bullet (a pupil
and close friend of Blondel). Both arches effectively served as doors to a
boundary formally known as the Enceinte de Louis XIII, which served as a
fortified wall built between 1633 and 1636. The enclosure was primarily
destroyed on the command of Louis XIV in 1670 though triumphal arches were
commissioned to mark some of the former wall doors and commemorate recent
military victories. In his Architecture Françoise ou Recueil, Blondel shows the
city walls and circular staircases within the pillars, although the pedestrian
access routes have been subsequently blocked up.
Although Blondel designed many arches the only other to be built was the
Porte Saint-Antoine, Paris, in 1672; however, it was destroyed in 1778 when it
became redundant as a defensive gate to the city and an obstacle to circulation.
This second arch was the most ornate of Blondel’s designs and was decorated
with detailed reliefs sculptured again by Michel Anguier. While the attic of this
earlier arch is also faced with ashlar, below the entablature pilasters and vous-
soirs are rusticated. However, the arch still exudes restraint in the reduction of
any pedestal and other classical details such as archivolts to the rim of the
arches, which are entirely omitted. Three other arch designs are noted in Blon-
del’s Cours (Porte Majeure, Porte Saint-Bernard and Porte Avec Trois Voûtes),
none of which were built. The monumentality in Blondel’s built work is derived
not only from its proportioned, symmetrical mass, but also from the apparent
114 Professional expression of ideology
historical reference to the architecture of ancient Rome. However, Blondel’s
arches show subtle signs of a progressive decorative style that affords them a
distinctly modern character. Apart from the obelisk-shaped detailing, the slim
mouldings and finely honed ashlar give a sense of lightness when compared to
the heavy weathered bulk of Roman arches, yet the mass of the two monuments
is comparable.
Blondel laid claim to only one other complete built work, the Corderie
Royale at the Arsenal Royale, Rochefort, 1670. The Corderie Royale was a
factory that produced braid rope for the French navy until the Revolution when
mooring lines changed to metal chains. It was one of eleven buildings that were
commissioned by Louis XIV to build and arm battleships. The building is
characteristically symmetrical on elevation, and attention is only drawn away
from the monotonous fenestration by its imposing scale. Again, Blondel teeters
on the austere, yet manages a simple beauty. Its internal arrangement is essen-
tially utilitarian yet part of a grand ensemble showing the power of the king
and the proper ordering of his navy. The Procès-Verbaux note that, other than
a few minor restoration projects,27 the only other built work that Blondel was
involved with was the repairing of an arch that once formed part of a bridge in
the town of Saintes called the Arc de Triomphe de Saintes (also known as the
Arc de Germanicus) in 1665.28 The Procès-Verbaux also note that Blondel, in
collaboration with Bullet, prepared plans for the re-master planning of parts of
Paris in 1676, though nothing came of it.
After Blondel died, the mathematician and astronomer Philippe de La Hire
(1640–1718) was appointed Professeur (though the directorship was passed to
Robert de Cotte, whereupon the role of director became more political than
educational). La Hire did not question Blondel’s ideological outlook because,
despite his position, he did not concern himself too much with the Académie. It
appears that the Académie appointed him for his reputation; his interests,
which remained with mathematics and astronomy, were of limited value to the
architectural students.29 The only meaningful contribution La Hire offered the
Académie was concerning calculating the maximum load that could be applied
to a voussoir of an arch by hypothetically assuming no friction between the
connecting surfaces.30 With this knowledge, one could accurately determine the
size and shape of the supporting piers. However, his disinterest in the Académie
in effect ensured that its mindset was unaffected by the general philosophical
drift from Rationalism to Empiricism in France during the late seventeenth
century and early eighteenth century. After La Hire died in April 1718 the role
of Professeur was passed onto his son, Gabriel-Philippe de La Hire however, he
too died only a year later.31
In 1719, at the age of sixty-six, Antoine Desgodets became the first trained
architect to be appointed Professeur. The death of Louis XIV four years earlier
and the end of a regime made little impact on the intellectual standing of the
Académie, and the old Desgodets was not going to break from the past. He
continued the academic belief,
 Professional expression of ideology 115
that the beauty of a building does not consist in precious materials … as
gold, silver, bronze, marble, nor in a mass of confusing ornaments, but in
the application of rules and regular proportions.32

Thus, though Desgodets did not change the Académie’s ideology, he did con-
sciously side with Blondel in the pursuit for a rational architecture. Curiously,
though Desgodets was an architect by training, there are no records to suggest
that he designed a building that was built. He did, however, design a few
hypothetical buildings (mostly churches) though they could not be feasibly built
at the time. Desgodets’ collection of religious buildings included a cathedral, a
parochial church, a monastic church and parts of a convent; all the designs
were symbols of his ideal architecture. In the cathedral, rows of tall Corinthian
orders hold a straight entablature to give an air of openness and space, con-
trasting with similar buildings of the time such as the Saint-Sulpice, Paris.33 It is
one of the first examples of a merger between Gothic structural lightness and
classical conceptions of architectural beauty that ushered in Neoclassicism.
In 1730, François Bruand (1674–1739), the son of Líberal Bruand (one of the
founding Membres of the Académie), was appointed Professeur of the Acadé-
mie though again no reports of his built work can be found. However, two
years later, Jean-Baptiste Leroux took the mantle, an architect with a con-
siderable portfolio of buildings. In addition to his duties at the Académie,
Leroux was the director of one of the largest architectural practices of the time
and specialised in hôtels (city houses for the wealthy). Many of the city centre
house designs, such as the Hôtel Roquelaure, responded to challenging irregular
sites and incorporated a series of axial, symmetrical orderings. The hotel is a
typical example of the importance of axes and symmetry, regardless of the site
restraints and the contrived forms that tend to result. The plan closely resem-
bles Jean-François Gallot’s winning design for the 1727 Grand Prix competi-
tion. In both instances, the house has a dual entrance with service staff quarters
and stables at a lower level to the front, while the principal rooms are raised
and face a formal rear garden. Before the year of Bruand’s appointment ended,
two other Professeurs were appointed, Jean Courtonne (1671–1739) and Abbé
Charles-Étienne-Louis Camus (1699–1768). Neither produced many buildings;
Camus’ efforts, in particular, remained mostly in mathematics, and his con-
tribution to architecture was confined to lecturing on geometry and arithmetic.
Even less influential to the story of architecture are Denis Jossenay (1685–1748),
who was appointed Professeur in 1739, and Louis-Adam Loriot (1700–1767),
appointed in 1748. Thus, since the professorship of Leroux, the Académie
lacked any meaningful leadership until Jacques-François Blondel was appointed
Professeur in 1762.34
In the preceding year of his appointment, J.-F. Blondel was commissioned to
design a convent for an ‘aristocratic religious foundation’ in Cambrai, though
nothing came of it.35 Similarly, in 1767 the abbot of Saint Arnold commissioned
J.-F. Blondel to design the Collége Royal de Saint Louis, an institution for
young ladies in Metz; however, though building work started in 1771, it was
116 Professional expression of ideology
halted shortly afterwards.36 A more important commission to design the Place
d’Armes, a parade ground next to the Cathedral of Saint Etienne de Metz, was
awarded by the Duc de Choiseul.37 It is not known when J.-F. Blondel was
commissioned, but the public square was built between 1764 and 1775.38 The
long duration of construction was because J.-F. Blondel saw an opportunity to
radically change the surrounding area and convinced the Duc that the approa-
ches to the cathedral should also be remodelled by constructing a collection of
buildings including the Hôtel de Ville (1764–1771), the Corps de Garde, or
guard house (completed 1771), a new façade to a parliament building (started in
1770, though work stopped in 1771 with the abolition of the parliament and
completed later; shops centrally occupy the building), the arched South façade
of the cathedral, and a portal to the cathedral’s West elevation (1764–1768,
destroyed in 1898).39 A courtyard was laid in front of the cathedral portico
flanked by the Bishop’s residence on one side and the parliament on the other.
To the North of the cathedral, J.-F. Blondel also laid a terrace with two flights
of steps that descend to the Place de Chambre. The ensemble was monumental
and successfully unified its constituent parts. The Western façade of the Hôtel
de Ville which fronts the Place d’Armes was J.-F. Blondel’s most impressive
architectural work and spanned ninety-two metres. The window punctuations
were restrained and rhythmical, yet it lacked the boldness associated with some
contemporary buildings, such as Antoine’s The Mint.

Figure 6.4 Jacques-François Blondel, Hôtel de Ville, former City Hall (right of picture),
to the East of the Place d’Armes, Metz, 1764–1771; the former guard house
Corps de Garde (left of picture), to the North of the Place d’Armes, com-
pleted 1771.
 Professional expression of ideology 117
In the 1860s the arcades to the cathedral began to be slowly eroded and were
completely demolished by 1882. In 1898 the cathedral entrance was also
destroyed and replaced by the current portico. Much of the spaces designed by
J.-F. Blondel are today covered with a new road layout. All that remains of the
grand masterplan are the three buildings aligning the Place d’Armes.40 Other
than the Hôtel de Ville, the buildings by Jacques-François Blondel that sur-
round the Place d’Armes are generally formal façades that hide the medieval
town buildings with infill accommodation behind. The collection is cramped,
and even with the classical arcade to the North of the square its juxtaposition
with the overbearing cathedral was awkward. The classical buildings and the
cathedral were pushed far too close together by the spatial restrictions of the
fortified town to accomplish a comfortable urban relationship. Other than his
work at Metz, only one other building by J.-F. Blondel came to fruition. In
1764 he was asked to draw up masterplans for Strasburg and Cateau-Cambr-
ésis. The plans were partly to rationalise the medieval streets for military pur-
poses (the towns had recently come under French jurisdiction) and provide civic
centres. Like Metz, J.-F. Blondel’s plans were a balance of aesthetic and utili-
tarian considerations. Given that France was a growing military force at the
time and conscious of the need to protect its own, most urban planning was
undertaken by ‘engineers’, who invariably produced functional defensive spaces.
However, J.-F. Blondel’s employers were convinced that his military back-
ground was sufficient for the role and were drawn to his ability to weave new
formality into an existing urban fabric. Regardless, the schemes remained on
paper due to opposition from local citizens and the city’s own architects. The
only part of the schemes to be built was the Aubette (1765–1772), which faces
Strasburg’s main square (now known as Place Kléber). The Aubette was ori-
ginally designed for military purposes; thus, it functioned in much the same
way as the Hôtel de Ville in Metz and bears many visual similarities.41 Though
J.-F, Blondel’s built repertoire, like many other Professeurs of the Académie, is
limited in number, his work does stand out as being a tangible expression of the
theoretical ideology he taught; he effectively practised what he preached. Both
his built work and the architecture he champions in his texts display a strict
form of Neoclassicism, minimising the use of the Orders on the exterior and
relying for effect on proportioned string courses, panels and simple channelled
treatments.
Jacques-François Blondel was also accompanied at the Académie in 1762 by
the architect and influential archaeological historian, Julian-David Leroy.42
Leroy submitted a design for the rebuilding of the Paris Hôtel Dieu in 1772,
although it was thwarted by events during the Revolution. Similarly, he
designed a park for the Château de Chantilly and alterations to A.-J. Gabriel’s
design for Versailles, although, again nothing was built. In fact, despite his
architectural upbringing and the occasional attempt to get something built, he
never succeeded in putting into practice his academic ideology.
In 1768 Antoine-Francois Mauduit (1731–1815) was appointed a professeur
of geometry. His only built work was the Grand Theatre in St. Petersburg, built
118 Professional expression of ideology
1814–15, (destroyed). The last two Professeurs, Charles Bossut (1730–1814),
Professeur de d’hydrodynamique, and Rieux, Professeur de stéréotomie, were
appointed in 1777 and 1792 respectively, though no record exists that either of
them produced any built work.

The Académie’s royal building commissions

All royal building work at the time of the Académie was undertaken by its
Membres or by architects closely affiliated with it; thus, it is an irony that, of
all buildings it should be those built for the king that are so removed from the
restrained sombre classicism advocated by the Académie.
The first royal building to be commissioned at the time of the Académie was
the Hôtel Royale des Invalides, an institution for military veterans of the Hun-
dred Years War in Paris. The commission was first undertaken by Libéral
Brunt, then a little-known academician, and work began on site in 1671. Its
barrack style grid plan would have been rather austere if it were not for the rich
frieze of trophies above the dormers and end pavilions. However, the main
block was later lifted into the royal architectural league when Mansart was
commissioned in 1676 to add a colossal chapel comprising the Soldier’s Church
(1677–1679) and the Dôme (1677–1709). The Dôme was initially only opened
for royal visits and was more of a monument commemorating military victories
than a working chapel. It was one of the most complex structures of its day,
which Berger describes as,

a windowed drum supporting a cupola with a very wide oculus that per-
mits a view of a higher cupola, all contained within the exterior shell with
its pointed profile, supported by a secondary drum with volute buttresses,
this in turn resting on the main drum with columns and entablature.43

Internally, the structure comprises Corinthian fluted columns and pilasters with
a broken entablature. It is magnificently decorated with a plenitude of Baroque
detail yet avoids the verbose clutter of Rococo design. The Dôme is decorated
externally with gilded military trophies and capped by an open lantern and
spire.
The Baroque ensemble is a far cry from the rational and restrained classicism
that was discussed at the time in the Académie. It appears that though the king
requested the Académie to advise on the most beautiful architectural style for
France, he was not so interested in hearing its findings. The same was the case
for his residential commissions. The first palace to be built after 1671 was for
Louis XIV’s mistress, Madame de Montespan (1640–1707), at Clagny, a suburb
of Versailles. Antoine Le Pautre was appointed in April 1674 to design Clagny;
however, when Madame de Montespan saw the construction work, she
declared it too small and simple for someone of her stature and Le Pautre was
dismissed. The building was destroyed and the project was passed onto Man-
sart the following year who was charged with designing a flamboyant château
 Professional expression of ideology 119

Figure 6.5 Libéral Bruant and Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Hôtel Royale des Invalides,
Paris, 1671–1709.

with the same vigour as his Invalides. The monumental house was adorned
with columns and pilasters with niches for sculptures to rival the very best
royal building work. It was constructed between 1675 and 1682, during which
time Madame de Montespan fell from the king’s favour and the house was
eventually destroyed in 1769 after years of neglect.
A similar splattering of Baroque detail can be seen on the Château du Val
(1675–?), the works to Versailles undertaken after 1678, Château de Marly (1679–
1684), the Place des Victoires (1685–90), the Place Louis-le-Grand (Vendôme)
(1699–1701), and most other royal commissions. Why then is the sombre rational
architectural style described in the Procès-Verbaux during the Académie’s for-
mative years nowhere to be seen in royal buildings? Why are rooms within Ver-
sailles that date from the 1670s covered with ornate woodwork and heavy
mouldings when the Académie emphasised a restrained rational style of archi-
tecture with detail restricted to specific areas such as capitals and reliefs? One
could be forgiven for thinking that it is due to Louis XIV’s favourite architect,
Mansart; however, on closer inspection it appears that the innovative archi-
tectural style displayed in many royal buildings can be attributed to the king
himself, who, having set up the académies to advise him on matters architectural,
proceeded to instruct his architects according to his own taste. In the book, A
Royal Passion, Robert Berger recounts letters sent on behalf of Louis XIV to
Mansart regarding the design for the Grand Trianon, Versailles (known as the
120 Professional expression of ideology
Trianon de Marbre before the existence of the Petite Trianon completed in 1768).
Berger notes that the king,

would seat himself under a tent at the construction site, joined by the
Marquis de Louvois (the new superintendent of the king’s buildings),
exerted close control over the building and personally intervened so that its
design was modified frequently. A letter from Louvois to Mansart – written
while the building was under construction and the first architect was
absent, taking the water at Vichy (!) – states that the king had ordered the
demolition of the central part of the corps-de-logis (then six or seven feet
high) because he was dissatisfied with its effect when viewed from the
garden side. In a drawing from Mansart’s office, this part of the corps-de-
logis appears at the right. … The letter then continues with Louis’ critique
of Mansart’s drawings that had been sent to him: the entablature of the
gallery should match the height of the entablature of the main building
(instead of being three feet lower) so that the interior of the gallery will be
24 not 21 feet high; Trianon-sous-Bois should have a low roof like the rest
of Trianon. There followed the king’s questions concerning the linkage of
Trianon-sous-Bois with the Salon de Jardins and the gallery, with Louvois
asking Mansart whether the entablature of the gallery should be continued
at the same height for the Salon and Trianon-sous-Bois, and whether the
edge of the roof should have a socle with pedestals for the placement of
“vases or such other ornaments that it may please the king to order”.44

Other letters sent on behalf of the kings during the construction of Grand Tri-
anon indicate that the monarch often sent instructions concerning,

the kind of stone to be used for the balusters and their arrangement; the
shape of rooms; the forms of water basins, the width of allées, the height of
trellises and trees, the placement of fountains; and the shape of the service
court, as well as other particulars.45

In some instances the king simply shared his thoughts, in others he approves the
suggestions of his architects, and in many instances, he plays the role of the
designer. Thus, a primary cause for royal building not adhering to the ideology
of the Académie was that often the roi-architecte was the king himself. One
letter sent to Mansart reads ‘the king is said to be pleased that the first archi-
tect’s proposal for the peristyle is rather similar to the one ordered by him’.46

Notes
1 Herrmann, ‘Antoine Desgodets and the Académie Royale d’Architecture’, p. 23.
2 Of the more notable architects who practised during the existence of the Académie
d’Architecture, the following were Membres: Jacques-Denis Antoine, Jacques-Fran-
çois Blondel, Nicolas-François Blondel, Germain Boffrand, Etienne-Louis Boullée,
 Professional expression of ideology 121
Libéral Bruand (sometimes spelt Bruant), Pierre Bullet, Abbé Camus, Antoine Des-
godets, Nicolas Dulin, Nicolas-Louis Durand (student under David Leroy), François
Franque, Ange-Jacques Gabriel, Jacques Gabriel, Charles Garnier, Daniel Gittard, Jac-
ques Gondouin (student), Claude Guillot-Aubry, Philippe de La Hire, Nicolas-Henri
Jardin, Le Camus de Mézières, Louis Le Vau, Pierre-Etienne Lebon, Claude-Nicolas
Ledoux, Jean-Baptiste Leroux, Julien-David LeRoy, Jules Hardouin-Mansart,
Mae Mathieu, Pierre Mignard, François d’Orbay, Nicolas d’Orbay, Marie-Joseph
Peyre, Nicolas-Marie Potain, Germain Soufflot, Louis-François Trouard, Charles
De Wailly (student), and Pierre de Vigny. Of the more notable architects who
practised during the existence of the Académie d’Architecture, the following were
not Membres: Louis-Jean Desprez, Leon Dufourny, Gabriel-Pierre-Martin
Dumont, Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, Marc-Antoine Laugier, Jean-Jacques
Lequeu, Pierre Patte, Charles Percier.
The membership of Claude Perrault is a debatable topic, see note 3 below.
3 Perrault is most commonly regarded as not being a member of the Académie. Egbert
argues this view because he never received an academician’s pay. Egbert, The Beaux-
Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 21. n. 23. However, Herrmann argues that
Perrault was a member, (Herrmann, Wolfgang, The Theory of Claude Perrault, A.
Zwemmer Ltd, London, 1973, pp. 23–9.) Perhaps the most definitive answer is found
in Delaire’s Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, who lists Membres of
the Académie and includes Perrault (p. 129).
4 Jules Hardouin-Mansart was made a Membre in 1675 and 1735, see Delaire’s Les
Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, pp. 129–30.
5 Durand was the architectural professor of the École Polytechnique when it was
formed after the Revolution while Gondouin acquired an extensive portfolio of
commissions and was one of the founding six members of the architecture compo-
nent of the Institut de France.
6 Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, p. 61.
7 Ibid., p. 62.
8 Laugier, Marc-Antoine, Essai sur l’Architecture, preface, pp. XXXIII–XXXIV, cited
by Pérez-Gómez, ibid., p. 61.
9 Ibid.
10 Vitruvius had considered the structural framework as a precondition of architectural
form and described two primitive constructions. The first comprised ‘entire trees laid
flat on the ground to the right and the left, leaving between them a space to suit the
length of the trees, and then place above these another pair of trees, resting on the
ends of the former and at right angles with them. These four trees enclose the space
for the dwelling. Then upon these they place sticks of timber, one after the other on
the four sides, crossing each other at the angles, and so, proceeding with their walls
of trees laid perpendicularly above the lowest, they build up high towers. The inter-
stices, which are left on account of the thickness of the building material, are stop-
ped up with chips and mud. As for the roofs, by cutting away the ends of the
crossbeams and making them converge gradually as they lay them across, they bring
them up to the top from the four sides in the shape of a pyramid’ (pp. 32–3.) The
second model described by Vitruvius was for an area where timber was scarce and
required less wood. It comprised a raised mound of earth upon which was built a
pyramidal roof of logs, which was covered with reeds and brushwood. Laugier also
describes the origins of architectural forms using branches and trees. However, his
‘primitive hut’ represents more of an architectural idea than a form of material
construction.
11 Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, p. 64.
12 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, 20 July 1685, Vol. II, p. 99.
13 Claude Perrault only designed six structures; the Eastern Façade to the Louvre, Paris,
mainly constructed 1667–1674; the Observatoire Royal, Paris, constructed 1667–
122 Professional expression of ideology
1671; the Arc de Triomphe du Faubourg Saint Antoine, Paris, designed and partially
constructed in 1670; two churches: St-Benoît-le-Bétourné and unrealised additions to
Soufflot’s Sainte Geneviève, both in Paris; and an altar in the Church of the Petits
Pères, Paris.
14 Louis XIV’s plans to redevelop the Louvre started on site in May 1663 with the
redecoration of a portrait gallery that had been burnt in 1661. The rooms were
renamed Galerie d’Apollon and were designed by Le Brun, who was also tasked with
providing many of the new portrait paintings.
15 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. 109.
16 Picon, French Architects and Engineers in the Age of Enlightenment, p. 34.
17 Ibid., p. 34.
18 Gallet, Paris Domestic Architecture of the Eighteenth Century, p. 23.
19 Kalnein, Wend von, Architecture in France in the Eighteenth Century, trans. David
Britt, Yale University Press, London, 1972, p. 1.
20 The term Rococo was first officially documented in the 1842 edition of the Diction-
naire de l’Académie Française.
21 Most of Gabriel’s built work was for the king. His royal residences include: Château
de Choisy (1740–1777); Château de Compiègne (1750); Gros Pavillon, Fontainebleau
(1750–1754); Place de la Bourse (1755); Place Louis XV (1757–1775); Petit Trianon
(1762–1768), Opera (1769–1770) and the Grand Project (built in part 1772–1775) at
Versailles; École Militaire (1768–1773); and series of smaller hunting lodges. How-
ever, Gabriel’s buildings were often changed and enlarged; his simple box hunting
lodges invariably ended up as flamboyant châteaux. Soufflot produced fewer build-
ings, favouring instead to tour Europe; however, his architectural influence during
the eighteenth century is no less than that of Gabriel. Soufflot’s built work includes;
Hôtel Dieu, Lyon (1740–1748); Sainte Geneviève, Paris (known as the Panthéon after
the Revolution) (1757–1790); and Hôtel Marigny (1768–1771).
22 The Place Louis XV was initially a formal square-shaped plaza with a bridged moat
perimeter aligned with statues. None of Gabriel’s design remains other than the two
identical façades that bounded its Northern edge. Both were designed to house gov-
ernment offices, and while the Eastern block is still home to the French Naval Min-
istry, the Western block was converted into the Hôtel de Crillon in 1758. The
military school was formed to turn young men of humble means into officers. In
1777 it was renamed the École des Cadets-Gentilshommes, and in 1784 it accepted
Napoléon Bonaparte as a student.
23 Henri Potain was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1738.
24 Architects who submitted entries included Boullée, Potain, Mique and Peyre. All the
submissions were collected in 1811 by Dufour and are currently held at Versailles.
25 Blondel, Cours d’Architecture, p. 318.
26 Ibid.
27 Blondel was involved in the restoration and the decoration to the vault and chapel of
Saint Laurent, Paris, 1672? destroyed 1712.
28 Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux, Vol. I, p. XXIII.
29 La Hire produced numerous discourses including: Nouvelle Méthode en Géométrie
pour les sections des superficies coniques et cylindriques (1673), Nouveaux Éléments
des Sections Coniques: Les Lieux Géométriques: Les Constructions ou Effections des
équations (1679), La Gnomonique ou l’Art de faire des Cadrans au Soleil (1682),
Sectiones Conice in novem libros distribute (1685), Tables du soleil et de la lune
(1687), École des arpenteurs (1689), Tabule Astronomicæ (1702), Planisphere celeste
(1705), Mémoire sur les conchoides (1708). He also contributed to zoology, the study
of respiration and physiological optics.
30 La Hire, Traité de Macanique: ou l’on explique tout ce qui est nécessaire dans la
pratique des arts, & les propriétés des corps pesants lesquelles ont un plus grand
usage dans la physique, Paris, 1695.
 Professional expression of ideology 123
31 Herrmann, ‘Antoine Desgodets and the Académie Royale d’Architecture’, p. 33.
32 Ibid., p. 47.
33 Desgodets’ design for a cathedral was monumental in size. A dimension on the plan
suggests the length of the building was 84 toises (164 metres), which would make it a
third larger than Saint-Sulpice, Paris, the largest church built at the time. The height
of the dome would have made it similar to that of the Dôme des Invalides.
34 After 1762 the school employed two Professeurs.
35 Sturges, Knight, ‘Jacques-François Blondel’, The Journal of the Society of Archi-
tectural Historians, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 1952, p. 19.
36 Ibid.
37 Kalnein, Architecture in France in the Eighteenth Century, p. 135.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
40 Jacques-François Blondel’s portal for the Southern façade of Metz Cathedral was
distinctly classical. Sturges notes that he shied away from a Gothic pastiche (such as
Gabriel’s towers of Orleans Cathedral) on the grounds of cost (Sturges, ‘Jacques-
François Blondel’, p. 19.) The front comprised a Doric entablature with Corinthian
columns. It joined a single storey classical arcade that ran the length of the Southern
façade, but at no point did any of these designs sit comfortably with the dominant
Gothic cathedral. It was replaced in 1898 with the current Gothicesque entrance.
41 The Aubette came to house one of the jewels of modernism. In 1928 Dadaists Jean
Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and the De Stijl founder, Theo van Doesburg, were
employed to convert the East wing into a restaurant and cinema-dance hall. The
interior makeover, including lighting and furniture, was an archetypal De Stijl pro-
duct, but was never fully respected at the time. During the following ten years, the
work was slowly eroded with repairs and alterations until it was almost completely
destroyed. However, in 2006, after painstaking research and renovation work lasting
almost thirty years, the rooms were reopened to the public having been completely
restored.
42 Leroy was appointed Adjunct Professeur in 1762 and became Professeur upon the
death of Jacques-François Blondel in 1774.
43 Robert Berger, A Royal Passion: Louis XIV as Patron of Architecture, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1994, p. 100.
44 Ibid., pp. 180–1.
45 Ibid., p. 183.
46 Ibid., p. 182.
7 The Suppression of the Académie

Jacques-Louis David and his grievances towards the académies

Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) was a product of the academic tradition, and
by the end of the eighteenth century he was an established master of the avant-
garde.1 His contemporaries regarded him as ‘the founder of Neoclassicism and
as a forerunner of the Revolution’.2 Even today the Coronation of Napoleon
testifies to David’s status as an artist; the only painting in the Louvre that
attracts more visitors is the Mona Lisa.
David’s painting career started at the Collège des Quatre-Nations.3 His family
frowned at his bent towards art rather than architecture (his uncles were archi-
tects), but he eventually overcame their opposition. After his initial studies at the
Collège David attended the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1765
for nine years, gained a Rome Scholarship in 1774, and then devoted his time in
Italy to a careful study of Classic sculpture and the great painters of the seven-
teenth century.4 It was here that David became fascinated with Classical history
and its heroic gestures. David’s master, Joseph-Marie Vien (1716–1809),5 intro-
duced him to the world of late Baroque Classicism, but he refrained from the fri-
volities of the Rococo and like many before him used the more powerful notions
akin to ancient Classicism to portray the theatrical passions that he represented
and which were to echo his political career.6 The heroes of his paintings are the
great figures of antiquity such as Socrates and Marcus Junius Brutus, with Jean-
Paul Marat and Napoléon Bonaparte as perceived modern counterparts.7
On entering Vien’s atelier, David was confronted with a rigid, even ossified,
artistic institution. In Vien’s world the authority of the art académie was
absolute and the hierarchy of genres unquestionable.8 In the corridors of the
Louvre, students whispered their hypotheses about the Prix de Rome; plots
were contrived to influence its award and rumours about backing unsolicited
entries were discussed. Certain teachers were suspected of improving the sket-
ches submitted by their pupils. In 1771 David submitted his entry of the Prix de
Rome, The Combat of Minerva against Mars and Venus, 9 although he lost out
due to the interference of Vien who took offence when David had not consulted
with him before making his submission despite being his teacher at the time.
The following year David submitted Diana and Apollo Killing the Children of
 The suppression of the Académie 125
Niobe. Convinced of his superiority, which his fellow pupils acknowledged, he
waited calmly for the verdict. When the jury gave the first prize to a rival, he
broke down in tears. David was deeply hurt. Outraged by what he considered a
corrupt injustice and overcome with despair, he decided on suicide. Michel
Sedaine (1719–1797), one of David’s teachers and close friend (who also held
the position of secretary of the Académie Royale d’Architecture10) comforted
him, and the act of starvation was never committed. Conversely, his third fail-
ure in the following year motivated him to try again. On his fourth attempt, on
27 August 1774, David finally won the Prix de Rome. When Vien had been
named Directeur of the Académie de France à Rome shortly after David’s
scholarship for the Prix de Rome had been ratified, they set off for the Palazzo
Manici on 21 October 1775.
During the five years that David studied in Italy, his fame grew to heroic
status in the Parisian art realm, though he knew little of his reputation whilst
he was away.11 Upon his return, David became a member of the Académie
Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1781.12 His fame grew throughout Europe
and the king granted him lodgings at the Louvre.13 On 20 July 1784, David
returned to Italy for eleven months to further his studies away from his Salon at
the art academy. The following years saw the continued production of eminent
artworks such as The Death of Socrates (1787) and Lictors Bringing Back to
Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789), which escalated his fame. Dowd notes
that at this stage of David’s career he ‘was the most powerful as well as the
most famous artist in all France’.14
David’s reputation was amassed at a time of social upheaval in France during
the first stages of the savage French Revolution.15 His passionate temperament
lent itself to what was then a progressively intense age in which he played the
crucial roles of organising revolutionary festivals and reforming the French
educational establishments. His sharp character also contrasted with the elegant
subtlety that marked his artwork. The ‘combination of classicism and nat-
uralism; which made his paintings appeal to all classes’ was an ideal mask
behind which his ferocious vengeance towards the monarchy could develop.16
After David had returned from Italy for the first time, it became increasingly
clear that his feelings towards the Académie were more than grievances.
Instead, he understood them to be injustices made against him and began to
encompass a wider-reaching hatred towards the monarchic establishment.
On face value, it is astounding that David decided to move away from the
glorious future that awaited him if only he had maintained allegiance to the
Ancien Régime. In addition to high social standing, the Ancien Régime offered
David a substantial and steady income for his pictures, which would have
afforded him considerable wealth. He had already received free ‘palatial’ living
quarters, lucrative annual commissions from the king, and was well on the way
to collecting a title of nobility later in life, a position that he eagerly coveted.
Faced with all this certain wealth, fame and future glory, David made a star-
tling decision to favour a radical revolution that would destroy all that would
otherwise provide a comfortable life. The question, therefore, is why? Dowd
126 The suppression of the Académie
suggests that ‘David’s enemies later alleged that his rancour against the Academy
stemmed from this rebuff’, referring to David’s failure to assume the position of
Directeur of the Académie de France à Rome. David’s sacrificial plight was surely
also propelled by his fiery temperament and the injustices that the academicians
imposed on him. Another cause of David’s disdain towards the academies
derived from his differing educational attitude to that of the officials at the art
académie. Once David had been accepted as a Membre of the art school he
encouraged his students to express their own individuality and avoid the aca-
demic tradition of strictly copying models under the direction of the Professeurs.
He believed instead that this academic attitude would ‘poison their style, destroy
all originality, and reduce them to formalisation, decadence, and bad taste’.17
However, given the fervour of David’s disapproving opinion of the academic
institution, it would appear that the motivation to move from a potentially
comfortable future existence and towards a political battle against the acade-
mies is the result of a more fundamental grievance. By 1787 the Académie
Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture had suppressed all exhibitions of art except
for those organised by itself and as such had a total monopoly over all art.18
Officers of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture wanted to ensure
its elite status and that the wealth and prestige that followed the art remained
under their control. David denounced this monopolistic stronghold of the aris-
tocrats as manifestly incompatible with surrounding European art cultures. His
time at the cosmopolitan Académie de France à Rome brought into sharp focus
the distinction between the French academic monopoly of art and the open
display of art in multicultural Rome, which David believed was the ‘meeting
place for the whole of fashionable Europe’.19 At the Académie de France à
Rome, David mingled with the most brilliant intellectuals in Europe and
encountered the ideals of the Enlightenment, which enabled him to formulate
his radical critique of the hidebound Parisian academic society. On his return to
France David presented the outcome of his stay in Italy, the Oath of the Hor-
atii. It was hailed as a masterpiece, and even the Pope asked for a viewing. The
painting depicts three Roman warriors saluting their father, who held their
swords, ‘to win or die in the struggle against the enemy’.20 To the less dis-
cerning critic, the painting was a simple depiction of the eternal principles of
natural Classicism; its masterful execution consumed the attention of the audi-
ence to such an extent that its more sinister intimations were overlooked. The
struggle was a representation of David’s underlying disdain towards the aca-
demic officials and the monarchic rule with which they collaborated.
The image later became known as the Sword of the Revolution and would
soon be unleashed on the academies.

Connoisseurs of the Ancien Regime were deceived by its competent hand-

ling of the apparatus of the past and overlooked the real meaning of this
credo of republicanism and the stern formal expression which found him
one day as Citoyen David, member of the Convention.21
 The suppression of the Académie 127

Figure 7.1 Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii, 1784. Oil on canvas, 3.3 
4.25m, commissioned by Louis XVI, painted in Rome. The Oath was exhib-
ited in 1785 and marked the triumph of Neoclassicism over the Rococo style
of the old regime four years prior to the revolution of 1789.

However, David was not the only proprietor of animosity, the Académie
Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture he rallied against also demonstrated
hostility.

Irritated by David’s popularity and disquieted by the artistic revolution it

reflected, some of the older members of the Academy were unable to conceal
their hostility. It is said that Pierre, the Director, who had promised the pain-
ter of Belisarius (David) that the government would buy his picture for 4000
livres, now offered him 50 livres. David kept the painting, later selling it to the
Elector of Trier for a much larger sum than the one originally offered.22

The public praise that David received indeed led to bitter envy among some
other Membres of the art establishment. Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre (1714–
1789), the Directeur of the French art school, loathed David for accruing more
fame than himself and had initially hung the Oath of the Horatii in an unfa-
vourable position in the Louvre to spite him, though Pierre was later ordered by
Charles-Claude Angiviller (1730–1810), the Directeur of the Bâtiments du Roi,
to move it to a better place.
128 The suppression of the Académie
The suppression of the Académie
The Académie Royale d’Architecture was never at the centre of David’s struggle
with the académies; ‘there is evidence that David approved of the work of the
professors of architecture, who continued to teach after the suppression of the
Academies’.23 It was the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture that took
the brunt of David’s onslaught, though the damage that the Académie Royale
d’Architecture sustained was no less destructive.
The troubles that evolved at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture
germinated several months after the fall of the Bastille and the creation of the
republican Assemblée Nationale (known after 9 July 1789 as the Assemblée
Constitutive Nationale).24 A complaint in the first week of September 1789 by a
few students at the school grew until 1793 when the revolutionary government
sided against all the académies.25 The complaint was published in the pamphlet,
Voeu des Artistes, and clearly defined the students’ growing feelings of injustice
and resentment. The pamphlet was curt, succinct and demanded that students
be allowed to sketch Classical antique models.26 The student rage led to accu-
sations of ‘blind protectors of rampant mediocrity’ being shouted at the art
Académie’s officers, who in turn were indignant towards the objections; they
expected the students to be instructed rather than to instruct. Unsurprisingly
the officers publicly rebuffed the demands in the Journal de Paris. 27 They did,
however, concede that the professeur’s protégés should be excluded from the
special classes reserved for medal winners and that sketches could be made
using Classical antique models, although they later reneged on their decision.
During the following months, David rallied other progressive academicians and
led them to issue further demands.28 Again these demands were confronted
with a defiant rejection and as punishment, the Officers excluded the protestors
from the halls of the art académie. David continued the rampage aimed at
Officers on 17 September 1789 by claiming ‘the Academy no longer likes the
antiques’.29 For several months the unrest escalated until 25 February 1790
when the Assemblée Constitutive Nationale was addressed by numerous disen-
chanted students who accused the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture
of being ‘opposed to equality and liberty’.30 The Académie’s problems had by
now entered the public realm for all to view, and so it announced a compro-
mise in order to be seen to be cooperative. It decided to entertain negotiations
and requested of the rebellious students a list of their demands. David was
nominated spokesman of the insurgent group and presented to the Académie its
stance that the academic statutes be revised and that the agréés of the Académie
be included for ‘justice and equity’.31 The Académie responded by accepting the
first request, and on 6 March 1790, it named David head of a new commission
to reform the statutes of the art académie. The majority of the agréés remained
insistent that their views should prevail and reiterated their demand to the art
académie on 27 March. However, Angiviller rebuffed all the proposals and
David was forcibly removed from the commission.32 David immediately resor-
ted to alternative means to bring about, as he saw it, ‘justice and equity’ to art.
 The suppression of the Académie 129
He took advantage of the growing public interest and government support and
planned to replace the entire academic system.
The Assemblée Constitutive Nationale paid close attention to these events
and concerned itself with the possible eventuality of a similar uprising in the
architectural school. Angiviller invited the Académie Royale d’Architecture to
reassess its own statutes intending to mitigate any uprising among the students.
However, the only student demands at this early stage in the debate, made on
27 April 1790, were nothing more than sensible amendments to certain practices
that were already widely known to be unacceptable including:

The right to be present at Academy meetings (especially those in which

academicians judged student work and conferred prizes), and changes to
the rules of the competition for the Prix de Rome.33

The architectural students were dissatisfied that the judging of the Grand Prix
was held in private and that the Surintendant often refused to issue accolades to
students including the promised stipend of study at the Académie de France in
Rome. It was also widespread knowledge that many academicians offered
assistance to some students with selfish motives and in a way that was far
beyond the bounds of acceptable tutoring.
On 28 June 1790 David led a deputation before the Assemblée Constitutive
Nationale to voice his complaints against the académies. The Assembly recom-
mended that he publish his demands and so, together with the Jacobin Club and
eleven newspapers, David produced a pamphlet that emphasised three issues.

First, the importance of the arts to the Revolution by their inculcation of

civic virtues; second, the incompatibility of the old Academy with the new
spirit of reason and the constitution; and finally, the establishment of a new
regime by the creation of a Commune of the Arts.34

The pamphlet, which was entitled Mémoire, was David’s first use of public
politics to bring about revolutionary change, and henceforth the académies and
David were at war. The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture’s Secré-
taire Perpétuel, the painter Antoine Renou (1731–1806), strongly rebuffed the
accusations that David had made and mounted a robust defence of the school’s
administrative handlings. However, the Académie was ordered by the Assem-
blée Constitutive Nationale to reconfigure its statutes within one month in line
with David’s demands. On 21 September 1790, some dissident artists proposed
a replacement art academy, the Académie Centrale de Peinture, Sculpture,
Gravure, et Architecture. David ignored the proposal; he wished for action far
more radical than that proposed by those whose cause he was championing.
His mounting desire to rid France of the old academic system can be seen in his
memorandum of July 1790 to the Assemblée which notes that David called
himself Président de l’académie, referring to the broader circles of
academicians.35
130 The suppression of the Académie
While the quarrel between academic officers and a growing body of protest-
ing art students continued, David rallied together a group of three hundred
fundamentalist revolutionary artists and formed a club called the Commune des
Arts.36 During the first meeting on 29 September 1790 a memorandum was
drafted. It was handed to the Assemblée and demanded that they dissolve the
Académies.37 The demands were accompanied by an essay entitled Considéra-
tions sur les Arts du Dessin, by Quatremère de Quincy, a close friend of David
and a founding member of the Commune.38 Quatremère savagely attacked the
teaching methods employed at the académies and portrayed them as being
overtly traditional and outmoded. The Swiss-born French scientist and physi-
cian, Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793), joined the onslaught by insulting the Aca-
démie Royale des Sciences and the Académie Française.39 Finally, on 19 August
1791, David sent another letter to the Assemblée claiming that the ‘public
exhibition of the academicians’ painting and sculpture maintained the acadé-
mies privilege of exclusiveness.’40 By this stage, the Académies realised that
negotiation with David was not an option. The Académie Royale de Peinture et
de Sculpture published two further defence statements for its handling of the
school,41 although it finally made a major concession. In late August 1791, the
art académie agreed that non-academicians could attend the Salon of 1791
alongside academicians.42 Perhaps more importantly, it also conceded that the
agréés could partake in the Salon. The Académie Royale de Peinture et de
Sculpture changed its name to ‘l’Académie Centrale’ to reflect the magnitude of
the changes that had taken place, although the new title was seldom used in
practice.43
David continued to climb to positions of power, and with each step he helped
crush the monarchy and together with that was attributed to it:

On 7 July 1792 David was elected Ajoint-Professeur and did not refuse. On
10 August the Tuileries were assaulted and taken, on 17 October David
entered the National Convention as a deputy. 11 November saw a new
application to close down all Academies. It was sponsored by David. On 17
September 1793 he voted for the execution of the King.44

It is clear that David never had any intention to work as a teacher, but had
accepted the position solely as a means to break the academic system down
from the inside. He considered the academic institution an autocratic court,
referring to the meeting rooms as the ‘Bastille’ and its members ‘l’animal qu’on
nomme académicien’.45 On 27 April 1793 David was asked if he would, as
Ajoint-Professeur, care to supervise the life-classes. His response to the invita-
tion was to disassociate himself with its teaching and announce; ‘Je fus autre-
fois de l’académie’.46 On 17 October 1792 David accepted the position of
Député of the Convention Nationale, the new government of France, which in
effect replaced the Assemblée Constitutive Nationale.47 The appointment was
accompanied by a place on the Comité de l’Instruction Publique, a move that
was certainly a conflict of interest.48 This appointment was a crucial political
 The suppression of the Académie 131
manoeuvre by David because of its primary concern with directing public opi-
nion. With the new political position that David had acquired, he ‘embarked
upon a policy of subvention and censorship of the newspaper press, the theatre,
and literature in general’.49 However, David’s primary concern remained with
using art as a propaganda tool to influence the mind of the public.50
With his significant standing in government and connections with ‘official’
public opinion David was in a formidable position to unleash his hatred
towards the art Académie. On 11 November 1792 David launched his most
savage attack yet towards the académies. Accompanied by a group of artists,
David approached the Convention and demanded that, except for some parts of
the school, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture be abolished.51
Conveniently for David (if not rather curiously) the Convention passed the
report to its Comité de l’Instruction Publique.52 Two weeks after these latest
demands were submitted, Joseph-Benoît Suvée (1743–1807) was made Directeur
of the Académie de France à Rome, a move by the Académie Royale de Peinture
et de Sculpture that further enraged David. It was Suvée, who had robbed the
Grand Prix from David in 1771. There was probably no man on earth whom
David hated more than Suvée. David immediately led a fight, not just against
Suvée, but the position of Directeur of the Académie de France. On 25
November 1792 the Assemblée, on receiving recommendations from the Comité
de l’Instruction Publique, which by now was almost entirely led by David,
issued a decree abolishing the position of Directeur and remanding the Acadé-
mie de France à Rome under the ‘supervision of the agent of France’.53 At the
same time, the Convention also suspended all the nominations and enrolment
of future elected members.
In January 1793, the Nationale Convention brought to trial the king and had
him killed.54 David voted for his execution.
On the 4 July 1793, in response to an investigation commissioned by the
Convention three days previously, David arranged for the Commune des Arts
to be the ‘only official association of artists’.55 In effect, the Commune replaced
the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, although it was another
month until the académies were formally abolished.
In David’s mind, the various academic faculties were welded together; the
Académie Royale d’Architecture was no exception. The académies had
become an amorphous enemy that David was determined to devour. However,
many members of the Convention were not as hostile to the académies as
David and instead considered that they had valuable national work to do.56
Regardless, on 3 August 1793, on behalf of the Comité de l’Instruction Pub-
lique, David announced that he was preparing a report on the suppression of
all the academic corporations and on 5 August 1793 the whole Convention
began to debate the question. The uncertainty of the future of the Académie
Royale d’Architecture raised fears that the Grand Prix of that year would be
cut short of its judgement and so on the suggestion of the students the judge-
ment was bought forward. Because the students had shown signs of allying
with the officers of the Académie (they in fact only had their own interests at
132 The suppression of the Académie
heart), David took offence to almost every faction of the académies. He ceased
to support anyone other than himself and declared an end to the judgement in
retaliation, as he saw it, to the students’ betrayal. No record was kept of an
award being issued by the Académie Royale d’Architecture in 1793.57 How-
ever, a fifty-member jury was set up on 30 October 1793 by the Convention,
known as the Club Rèvolutionnaire des Arts, and awarded Jean-Constantin
Protain the Deuxième Prix of 1793.58 Only two members of the jury were
architects, neither of whom had belonged to the Académie Royale
d’Architecture.
On 8 August 1793, the Comité de l’Instruction Publique issued its report
proposing in full the suppression of the académies. David led the way on the
trail of damnation with accusations of deception, bribery, philosophical and
artistic weakness, and cruelty. His most critical allegations were aimed towards
the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, although he made it clear that
his hatred was being directed at the academic system at large. David ended his
tirade with a call for extermination:

In the name of mankind, in the name of justice, for the love of art, and
above all for the young, let us destroy, let us annihilate these too deadly
Academies, which can no longer remain under a free regime. As an acade-
mician, I have done my duty. You decide.59

David’s onslaught was met by an immediate decision by the Assemblée. As of

that day:

All the Academies and literary societies, licensed or endowed by the nation,
are abolished.60

On the night of 16–17 August 1793, the quarters of all the académies were
sealed. David’s victory was complete. No more could the Académie Royale
d’Architecture continue to officially exist or train young architects.
David had blown the entire academic realm into disarray, and the Académie
Royale d’Architecture did not escape the consequences of his fury. The rampage
had developed such momentum that David hardly had the peace of mind to
calculate the direction he was heading in. Whenever he was refused an award or
a position the winning contender became his rival. On many occasions, David
was unable to discern between professional competitiveness and what he saw as
the unfair and divisive class system. What had germinated from grudges
towards academic officers turned to a landslide of hatred against all the acadé-
mies. It is perhaps ironic that on the one hand, David’s quest was to rid the
academic rulers of their power so that education might be released from mon-
archic and dictatorial oppression, yet on the other hand, he became so ruthless
in his struggle for power that he was known as the ‘dictator of the arts’.61
 The suppression of the Académie 133
Notes
1 David was born in London although moved to Paris at the age of nine after his
father was killed during a craze of duelling that swept through high society at the
time. His art became, ‘haunted by the loss of his father, and what became, for him,
its cognate forms; mourning, oath-taking, vengeance and honour.’ Monneret, Sophie,
David and Neo-Classicism, Finest SA/Éditions Pierre Terrail, Paris, 1999, p. 14.
David died in Brussels in disillusionment and exile.
2 Dowd notes two examples: F. A. Auland, ed. La Société des Jacobins, Jouaust, Paris,
1889, I, 333; and E. Charavay, ed., Assemblée électorale des Paris, Jouaust, Paris,
1894, II, 260. Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, pp. 2–3.
3 His uncles, François Buron (1731–1818) and Jacques-Francois Desmaisons (c.1720–
1789), coerced David, with the help of David’s mother, to attend the Collège; the
persuasion was met with little resistance and David soon ‘covered his books with
sketches and in other ways indicated a great talent for drawing’. Ibid., p. 7.
4 David’s attendance at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture started when
François Buron, resigned to the fact that his nephew would never follow in his
architectural footsteps, took him to meet François Boucher (1703–1770), an aged
relative and leading artist of the day. The old artist was then at the height of his
fame. However, he decided not to take David on as a pupil; he was too tired and his
health too weak. Instead, he recommended David to Joseph-Marie Vien, who was
famous throughout Europe as a teacher. For an overview of David’s academic
training see Monneret, David and Neo-Classicism, pp. 17–27.
5 Vien was a Neoclassical painter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1745, studied at the
Académie de France à Rome and became the Directeur of the Italian school in 1775,
see Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, p. 7. His wife, Marie-Thérèse Reboul
(1728–1805), was also a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture
and their son, Marie Joseph, also distinguished himself as a painter.
6 During his former years of training at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculp-
ture he was forbidden by Vien to read contemporary philosophers such as Voltaire
and Rousseau. Instead, Greek and Roman history made up the bulk of his education.
7 One example is The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of his Sons, 1789. The story
of Brutus starts when ‘the son of Tarquin the Proud, the last king of Rome, raped
the virtuous Lucretia, … To vindicate her honour, she committed suicide in the
presence of her father and Brutus, nephew of Tarquin, … Brutus tore the dagger
from Lucretia’s body and, with others, swore on her corpse that he would rid Rome
of the Tarquins and the monarchy.’ A short time later, ‘Brutus was made consul, but
soon heard that his sons, Titus and Tiberius, were involved in a plot to restore the
monarchy, whereupon he had them condemned to death and executed.’ Schnapper,
Antoine, David, Alpine Fine Art Collection Ltd., 1982, pp. 90–1. The painting was
finished during the storming of the Bastille after which its political significance star-
ted to be appreciated.
8 At that time the Louvre was the centre of the French art world, an eclectic and
highly privileged campus inhabited by a multitude of artists. Within the walls of the
old palace, pupils found not only their teachers, but also the theoreticians associated
with the Encyclopédia, connoisseurs, dealers and foreign aristocratic visitors. Many
of David’s future friendships, rivalries and enmities began there. David grew close to
many members of the Jacobins, a political club formed in 1789; his enemies were
generally academicians and academic officials.
9 Currently exhibited in the Louvre.
10 Sedaine was made secretary in 1768 and continued until the suppression. Delaire, Les
Architectes élèves de l’École des Beaux-Arts, p. 128.
11 The Roman academy had such high regard of David’s artistic talent that it accorded
him an extra year at the Roman school.
134 The suppression of the Académie
12 David was made an agréé (approved) of the art académie on 24 August 1781 and
later on 23 August 1783 a full member. He acquired the position of agréé after sub-
mitting a portrait of Count Potocki to the académie for ‘advice and instruction’. The
work was greeted with such awe that David was immediately made the offer to be an
academician.
13 These lodgings became an immense studio on the top floor of the Louvre overlooking
the Quai opposite the Collège des Quatre-Nations where he had first read. Other
lodgings that belonged to him at the Louvre were offered to his students in the
North-East wing.
14 Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, p. 20.
15 By 1789 France’s debt had reached a critical stage. The king took the desperate
measure of summoning the États-Généraux, a legislative body made up of three
estates: the clergy (the First Estate), nobility (the Second Estate) and the rest of the
populace, or more specifically, the bourgeoisie (the Third Estate), to vote for reforms
to the French Constitution. The king allowed only one vote per estate, meaning that
the massive Third Estate could be out-voted two to one by the smaller Clergy and
Nobility. Eventually forced out of the meeting, the Third Estate created an Assem-
blée Nationale to replace the États-Généraux in opposition to the king. Breaking
from the assumption that they represented the tremendous medieval divisions of
society, the majority of its members claimed to represent all Frenchmen without
distinction. They progressed their cause until rural revolt and Parisian riots frigh-
tened a government no longer certain that it could rely upon its army, while con-
servative deputies were intimidated by peasants pillaging country houses. On 14 July
1789, the people of Paris stormed the Bastille prison for its weapons, proclaimed a
‘Commune’ and formed the Garde Nationale under the leadership of La Fayette, a
French soldier who had recently fought in the battle for American independence.
16 Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, p. 2.
17 In 1787 David had failed to assume the position of Directeur of the Académie de
France à Rome. Angiviller felt that David was too young for the position, although
he did express a desire for it to be awarded to him in six or twelve years when the
position would again become vacant.
18 Schnapper, David, p. 67.
19 Ibid., p. 35.
20 Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, p. 1.
21 Pevsner, Academies of Art, p. 193.
22 Ibid., p. 14.
23 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, pp. 65–6.
24 The Assemblée Nationale was a transitional body between the États-Généraux and
the National Constituent Assembly that existed from 17 June to 9 July of 1789;
however, it is common to refer to the body even after this date as the Assemblée
Nationale or Assemblée Constitutive. The États-Généraux had been called in May of
1789 to deal with France’s financial crisis, but failed to accomplish much due to
squabbling between the Estates. On 17 June 1789, having completed its verification
of powers, the Third Estate formed the Assemblée, not of the Estates but for ‘the
People’. The clergy and the nobility slowly joined them, and the Assemblée began to
function as a governing body and a drafter of constitutions.
25 The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture had experienced riotous behaviour
before, but this had no connection with events that finally caused its demise. The
earliest student riot was in 1768 over an objectionable distribution of prizes though it
was quelled when the art académie amended some internal rules.
26 It also called for the admission of Drouais (David’s most highly regarded pupil) to
the art académie and the exclusion of the professeurs’ protégés from special classes
reserved for medal winners.
27 Journal de Paris, no. 260, 17 September, p. 1180.
 The suppression of the Académie 135
28 The Constitution Fracternelle issued demands on 5 December 1789, which led to a
declaration of a revision of the statutes by all three classes of the art académie on 30
January 1790.
29 Dowd makes reference to a letter from David to a friend, Wicar, see Dowd, Pageant
Master of the Republic, p. 29.
30 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 66.
31 Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, p. 30.
32 Ibid., p. 31.
33 Chafee cites Bonnaire, Procès-Verbaux de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts, Vol. 1, p.
LVIIIl.
34 Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, p. 32.
35 Pevsner, Academies of Art, p. 198.
36 Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, p. 33.
37 Pevsner, Academies of Art, p. 198.
38 Quatremère de Quincy was an antiquarian and editor of a double volume, Dictio-
naire Historique d’Architecture. He was imprisoned briefly during the French Revo-
lution, but later became Secretaire of the Académie des Beaux-Arts under the
Bourbons. He was also an archaeologist, Surveillant d’art et de Monuments de Public
(1816); editor of Dictionary of Architecture (1795–1825) and Methodical Encyclo-
paedia, by Charles Joseph Panckoucke; author of Ideas about the ideal (1805), Jupi-
ter of Olympus (1814), Canova (1834), and Michelangelo (1839).
39 His book Les Charlatans modernes, ou letters sur le charlatanisms académique
(1791) attacked various academicians, notably Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, a
French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry, finance, biology, and
economics.
40 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 67.
41 Two articles were written by Antoine Renou, see, Bonnaire, Procès-Verbaux de
l’Académie des Beaux-Arts, Vol. 1, p. XLII.
42 Pevsner, Academies of Art, p. 198.
43 Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, p. 33.
44 Pevsner, Academies of Art, p. 199.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
47 The Assemblée Constitutive Nationale was dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was
succeeded by the Assemblée Législative. The Convention Nationale, often known
simply as the Convention, comprised the Assemblée Législative and a constitutional
assembly and sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795. The députées to that
Convention comprised only Frenchmen 25 years old or more, domiciled for a year
and living by the product of their labour. The Convention Nationale was, therefore,
the first French assembly elected by universal male suffrage, without distinctions of
class.
48 The Comité de l’Instruction Publique was tasked with governing state education and
examinations. It also contributed to an immense variety of cultural affairs including
the education of women, national festivals, retirement pensions and the instruction
of the blind.
49 Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, p. 91.
50 Dowd notes that ‘David demanded the death penalty for artists who produced roy-
alist propaganda and denounced émigré painters who disseminated monarchist
ideas’. Ibid., p. 89.
51 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 67.
52 Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, pp. 91–2.
53 Chafee cites, Collection générale des décrets rendu par la convention nationale, Paris,
chez Baudouinm Imprimeur de la Convention Nationale, 1739–1795. Vol. September,
136 The suppression of the Académie
October, November 1792. p. 235; Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École
des Beaux-Arts’, p. 67.
54 Roberts, The Penguin History of Europe, p. 352.
55 Pevsner, Academies of Art, p. 199.
56 The Académie Royale des Sciences, for example, was required to complete its task of
formalisation of a metric system. Chafee notes that ‘the great scientist Lavoisier
wrote to Lakanal, a deputy in the Convention (Assemblée), to defend the Academy
of Science, “so that the temple of science remain standing amid so many ruins”.’
Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 68.
57 David declared on 7 August 1793 that ‘there shall be a postponement in judging the
prizes of the académies of painting, sculpture, and architecture.’ Chafee cites Col-
lection générale des décrets rendu par la convention nationale, 1792–1795. Vol.
August, 1793. pp. 49–50; Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des
Beaux-Arts’, p. 69. n. 55.
58 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’École des Beaux-Arts, p. 137.
59 Chafee, citing, Collection générale des décrets rendu par la convention nationale,
Vol. August 1793, pp. 55–7; Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des
Beaux-Arts’, p. 67.
60 Ibid., p. 69.
61 Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic, p. 95.
8 The Revival of the Former Académie

The revival of the school of the former Académie at the École des
Beaux-Arts
The Revolution created a gap in the history of the French official academic
tradition from 17 August 1793 until 25 October 1795 when the Convention
formed the Institut National des Sciences et des Arts (in 1806 it was renamed
Institut de France). The Institut was brought about to fill the void and assume
the functions (other than teaching students) of the former French académies.

It is intended: (1) to perfect the sciences and the arts through uninterrupted
researches, by the publication of discoveries, by correspondence with
learned and foreign societies: (2) to follow … scientific and literary work
intended for the general utility and the glory of the republic.1

Although the Institut was not tasked with teaching students of architecture, it
did wield considerable control over how, what and by whom students were
taught at what became the École des Beaux-Arts. The Institut could, for
example, until 1863, nominate professeurs of the École and sometimes even
made selections from its own ranks. It also controlled briefing and judging of
the Grand Prix competitions, a duty that allowed it to guide the course of the
École’s curriculum. However, fundamental and profound change to the Insti-
tut’s continuation of the non-schooling functions of the former Académie
Royale d’Architecture quickly diminished its authority. The Institut soon had
no dealings with official buildings of national importance, although it did have
some influence on the preservation of historic buildings. Its scope of influence
and general lack of importance can be seen in the number of members of the
Institut. It comprised 144 académiciens divided into three Classes; first, the
physical sciences and mathematics; second, the moral sciences and politics, and
third, literature and the ‘Beaux-Arts’. This third group, known as the Classe de
la Littérature et des Beaux-Arts, included six Architects, all of whom were
employed by the former Académie Royale d’Architecture.2 In addition to the
Architects, the Troisième Classe included sculptors, painters, a large number of
literary men, musicians and actors. Given the broad spectrum of artistic
138 The revival of the former Académie
interest, it is no wonder that the group failed to cooperate as a team. Conse-
quently, in 1803 Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821) formed a fourth group, the
Classe des Beaux-Arts. 3 This Classe was established in five Sections,

consisting respectively of ten painters, six sculptors, six (eventually nine)

architects, and now also three gravure … three composers, and a perma-
nent secretary – an arrangement that essentially continues to the present
day.4

Napoléon’s reorganisation of the Institut included proposals for the Classes to

be renamed Académies; however, he was advised against the move for fear of
antagonising republican supporters given the strong monarchic connotations
that the Académie still carried. When Louis XVIII (1755–1824) assumed the title
of king in 1816, the Classes were indeed renamed Académies in honour of his
younger brother, Louis XVI. Louis XVIII made very few other amendments to
the Institut, the only other significant decree being on 27 April 1815 when he
increased the number of architect académiciens that formed the Section
d’Architecture from six to eight, a situation that remains today.5 A decree of 20
March 1805 ordered the Institut to move from its founding residences in the
Louvre to fill the entire Collège des Quatre-Nations (other than the room which
housed the Bibliothèque Mazarin). It took until February 1807 to make the
move, and the Institut remains there today.6
The school of the Académie Royale d’Architecture was the only element of
the former royal académies that managed to escape complete closure and con-
tinued to function, initially under private auspices, but later with official sup-
port. The remnant school was retained largely because of Leroy who was the
Professeur of the Académie Royale d’Architecture at the point it was abol-
ished.7 It was Leroy’s close patronage with David that effectively enabled him
to provide some continuity to the school of the Académie Royale d’Architecture
during the transition between the Ancien and Nouveau Régimes. Leroy had
much in common with David; he was sympathetic towards the cause of the
revolutionaries and valued the art and architecture of Neoclassicism. David
expressed confidence in Leroy’s work and advised the Convention to include
him on a jury that was set up to replace the Commune des Arts. The jury was
charged with judging important competitions for the Salons and the Grand Prix
de Rome, and comprised fifty-five members including twelve painters, seven
sculptors, nine Architects, three actors, four men of letters, a dealer of paint-
ings, a contractor and the commanding general of the revolutionary armies. A
few months later David again expressed his favour towards Leroy by including
him in a collection of ten men to run a new museum in the Louvre.
David’s attack on the académies was backed up by minimal philosophical
foundation, which can be seen by the lack of planned alternatives to the schools
of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture and Académie Royale
d’Architecture. After the académies were closed, it was soon noted that the void
in the education of the young should be filled. With only eight days elapsing
 The revival of the former Académie 139
after its abolition, the Ministre de l’intérieur wrote to the Comité de l’Instruc-
tion Publique requesting that the schools of the former académies be restored
because of their immense worth and went on to suggest that the school of the
Académie Royale d’Architecture be run by the same Secrétaire Perpétual and
teachers as had previously taught prior to its suppression. The Convention had
considered, at least, the cost of education and had allocated funds in the pre-
vious decree of 3 April 1793.8 Therefore, with the funds that the Convention
had accrued, a decree in September of 1793 ordered the reopening of the art and
architectural academic courses. The architectural course was resurrected with-
out any relevant reforms. In October Leroy addressed the Société Populaire et
Républicaine des Arts, an arts committee, and announced that the school would
be resuming in a vestibule in the Louvre spanning the Jardin de l’Infante to the
former apartment of the Queen Mother.
Since 17 August of that year, Leroy had been conducting the school at his
own home.9 Even the Prix d’Emulation competitions were carried out at his
house, a commitment that demonstrates Leroy’s dedication to the continua-
tion of the school. He enlisted the assistance of Antoine Laurent Thomas
Vaudoyer (1756–1846) and invited Charles Percier and Pierre François Léo-
nard Fontaine to judge student work. Instead of the highly sought after sti-
pend to Rome, students at Leroy’s school, immediately after the Académie’s
abolition, had to make do with books from the old library or Vaudoyer’s own
collection for prizes.10 It is unknown how the funds required to run the school
were raised during this interim period, although Chafee suggests that it is
most probable that Leroy and Vaudoyer provided the financial resources
required.11 To help with the running of the school Leroy was given access to
the library and possessions of the former architectural academy until the
winter of 1795.12
Leroy studied as a student at the Académie d’Architecture between 1748 and
1750, won second prize in the Prix de Rome in 1749 and first prize in 1750. He
also studied at the Académie de France à Rome between 1751 and 1754 where
he developed a fascination for Greek ruins rather than Roman. Given that
David’s disdain towards the running of the académies became prevalent upon
his return from the Roman school, could it be that the different cultural and
artistic attitudes held by the Parisian and Roman schools were the cause of
Leroy’s similar, though less forceful, revolutionary sensibilities? After finishing
his studies at the Roman school, Leroy travelled to Greece to document and
survey ruins in Athens, Corinth and Sparta. Because the country had been under
Ottoman control and therefore closed to European visitors, very few con-
temporary publications of Greek ruins were available. Given also the growing
interest during the 1750s in the debate as to whether beauty was universal and
absolute rather than relative and subject to change, Leroy’s new collection of
details and studies proved to be an immediate and substantial contribution to
the debate. His famous book, Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la
Gréce, ouvrage divisé en deux parties, ou l’on considére et, dans la seconde du
coté de l’architecture, appeared in 1758. The two volumes that comprised the
140 The revival of the former Académie
single publication echoed the dualistic methodological approaches (historical
and scientific) that stemmed from competing epistemological viewpoints held at
the time, but that had the common Enlightenment belief in human rationality.13
Jeanne Kisacky notes that Leroy is hailed by scholars to be ‘the creator of a
systematic chronological model of architectural progress’, (and that he is
inconsistently labelled an ‘archaeologist, historian, antiquarian, Architect, and
even an engineer’).14

This dual approach to the wealth of details and monuments corresponded

with his intention to separate his work into two methodological approa-
ches, each with distinct audiences, methods, narrative and goals. His his-
torical approach would provide the history and inscriptions of the
monuments, quote relevant passages from ancient authors, give details of
the current state of the ruins, and provide an account of his trip. In con-
trast, his architectural approach would provide plans, details, and obser-
vations of the monuments, consider them in interaction according to their
proportions and measures, illuminate the descriptive errors of other his-
torical accounts of the monuments, discuss the principles of architecture,
and perhaps reveal architectural progress.15

Leroy’s book comprised beautiful picturesque engravings of ancient Greek

monuments around the nation’s capital. Its rich imagery is clear evidence as to
why the book enabled Leroy to climb to the highest ranks of architectural aca-
demia in such a short period. The publication caused Leroy to receive interna-
tional fame and he was given an immediate position of Professeur Auxiliaire at
the Académie Royale d’Architecture.16 Until 1762 Leroy’s book was the best
available record of Greek buildings.17

On 7 August 1758, Leroy presented a copy of Les ruins to the Academy of

Architecture, and for the next several months the Academy read aloud
portions of the work at its meetings.18

Leroy quickly played an active role in the Académie’s curriculum and teaching.
He was particularly known for attending a large number of committees. In 1774
Leroy became Professeur of the Académie Royale d’Architecture.19 Following
the trend set by Blondel and many other contemporary directors of other
schools akin to the ancien academic realm, Leroy used his thesis as the basis
upon which he drew together a series of lectures that were to guide the school
in matters of history and theory.20 Unsurprisingly, therefore, students’ work
under the directorship of Leroy followed a distinct Grecian style.21
During the years that immediately followed the suppression of the académies
the number of students that were taught by Leroy was very small.22 This
decline had enabled a rival school, now known as the École Polytechnique, to
form during 1794 and which continues to exist today. The École Polytechnique
was primarily a school of engineering and was developed to furnish pupils to
 The revival of the former Académie 141
23
still more advanced engineering schools. However, its immediate function was
to amalgamate various engineering schools that had started to flourish during
the latter days of the Ancien Régime, but which had become desperately dis-
organised during the Revolution. As part of the Convention’s hasty attempt to
collect together these like-minded academic remnants it also decided to include
the school of the former Académie Royale d’Architecture. It is not known why
Leroy’s school was not recognised as the clear successor of the architectural
académie or why the school was not included as part of the École Poly-
technique. The strange decision was, however, short-lived and on 25 October
1795 David, (who had become president of the Convention Nationale on 5
January 1794) decreed, ‘In the republic there shall be schools especially dedi-
cated to the study of painting, of sculpture, and architecture’.24 The new
architectural school was named the École Spéciale d’Architecture and effectively
comprised the school that Leroy had been continuing since the suppression. The
decree was the last act of the Convention before it was dissolved the following
day. It also effectively removed from the École Polytechnique the official
undertaking of the role and responsibilities of the former school of the Acadé-
mie Royale d’Architecture and restored it to Leroy’s school whereupon it again
became the single most important establishment for the teaching of architecture
in France. It is not known whether the models and drawings that the École
Polytechnique had taken from the former architectural academy were ever
returned. However, notwithstanding this loss, and that of the Académie’s name,
the architectural school had effectively undergone a complete turnaround whilst
sustaining very little damage to its teaching practices from the forces of the
political upheaval. The political forces did, however, considerably affect the
number of students who attended the school. Only thirty-seven students were
admitted during the first ten years of the École.25
The structure and format of the École Spéciale d’Architecture were similar to
that of the former Académie. Leroy lectured one hour a week on:

The history of architecture and of the theory of the different branches of

his art, the Orders, the buildings erected by the people of antiquity and the
works of Vitruvius, Palladio, Scamozzi and Vignola.26

He was accompanied by three little-known colleagues: the painter and engraver

Pierre-Antoine de Machy (1723–1807), the Architect Antoine Francois Mauduit,
and the Architect Rieux (also a member of the abolished Académie Royale
d’Architecture), who lectured on perspective, mathematics and stereotomy (‘the
science of geometrically layout patterns for cutting stones so that they will fit
together neatly in structures, including such complicated structures as vaults’).27
Competitions remained the primary method of assessing student work and were
prepared in architectural ateliers. Designs were submitted on a monthly basis
and judged by the jury that the Convention had appointed in 1793, of which
Leroy was a member. Candidates that showed particular talent were encour-
aged to submit entries for the Grand Prix de Rome, which as of 1797 was
142 The revival of the former Académie
judged by the Institut National des Science et des Arts (except for a period from
1863 to 1871).28 In 1800 the age of entrants was limited to 30 years, and it was
also agreed that winners of the Grand Prix could not compete for the prize
again.29
Shortly after the decree of 25 October 1795, the architectural students moved
from Leroy’s home to lodges at the Louvre. In 1797 the school was shuffled
around and ended up in a room next to the École Spéciale de la Peinture et de la
Sculpture which enabled the two schools to foster a strong bond. The result
was that on 31 March 1799 the schools were formally joined in name as the
École Spéciale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture. The merger was appar-
ently part of a plan to echo the Classes of the Institut National des Sciences et
des Arts as the topic of the architectural Grand Prix in the following year was
entitled an ‘École Nationale des Beaux-Arts’. The Grand Prix competition had
been resurrected in 1797 and strongly resembled the form that had been pio-
neered at the Académie Royale d’Architecture. Again, it carried the stipend of a
five-year study placement at the Académie de France à Rome.30 However, the
unrest in Rome at the time effectively prohibited any study at the city until
peace was restored in 1802 and the Académie de France à Rome moved to the
Villa Medici where it remains today.31 In 1802 the winners of the Grands Prix
of 1797, 1798 and 1799 were all sent to Rome; however, thereafter winners were
sent every other year due to the financial difficulties that France suffered at the
time. The winners that were not honoured with the stipend were instead paid a
cash sum.32 This system lasted until 1806 when the Rome prize once again
became an annual event although the length of stay was reduced from five years
to two or three. The lack of resources that the French government offered
Leroy’s school meant that the prizes for the Prix d’Emulation continued to be
paid for by Leroy himself.33
The architectural section of the school was required in 1801 to move from
the Louvre to the Collège des Quatre-Nations (Napoléon’s order also changed
the name of the Collège to the Palais des Beaux-Arts), and the professeurs were
permitted to lodge there. The move was to make room for a new museum in
the Louvre although it took two years before Vaudoyer’s designs for the inter-
nal reconfigurations to the Collège were finished because parts of the Palais des
Beaux-Arts were in a state of significant disrepair. Towards the end of his life,
Leroy had hoped to form an independent architectural school again, separate
from the École Spéciale de la Peinture et de la Sculpture because he began to
believe it had a detrimental influence on his school (the two schools shared a
central administration body). However, nothing came of his proposal for an
École Nationale d’Architecture.
Leroy died in 1803 and was succeeded by his former student and close friend,
Léon Dufourny.34
Contrary to Leroy’s hopes for the architectural school to become an inde-
pendent institution, it was instead joined by its sister art school again, at least
in location, in April 1807 when the artists were eventually forcibly expelled
from their premises at the Louvre. Furthermore, with the order of expulsion
 The revival of the former Académie 143
came a recognition of the union through a new collective name for the two
schools, the École Impériale et Spéciale des Beaux-Arts.35 On 18 September
1816, a decree was issued by the restored monarchy which renamed the collec-
tive school the École Royale et Spéciale des Beaux-Arts. Three years later on 4
August 1819, an order finally fused the two schools entirely and renamed them
the École des Beaux-Arts (Royale was used intermittently, according to the
ruling state of the time).

The accommodation of the École

The decree of 1816 also required the newly formed École des Beaux-Arts to move
to new premises along the Rue Bonaparte (less than two hundred metres from
the Collège des Quatre-Nations), although it was slow to take up its new resi-
dence. The delay was in part due to an extensive construction programme of new
and renovated buildings that were built around a former church known before
the Revolution as the Couvent des Petits-Augustins (built 1608–1619). During the
Revolution, the church was used to store monuments and sculptures collected by
Lenoir to avoid their destruction and later became the Musée des Monuments
Français until 24 April 1816 when Louis XVIII decreed the museum be closed and
the collection returned to its respective sources.36 As it transpires, many of the
sculptures remained (their owners having shown little inclination to haul them
back) including the entrance façade of Philibert de l’Orme’s Château d’Anet
(remaining) and the portico of the Château de Gaillon (recently restored and
returned to its original position at Gaillon). The École was restricted to the
church and its adjoining cloister and gardens until 1862. It was Félix Duban
(1798–1870) who pioneered the programme of buildings to accompany the church
in housing the École des Beaux-Arts.37 His work started in 1834 with modifica-
tions of an earlier project by François Debret (1777–1850), brother-in-law to
Duban, who was slow to progress designs for his Grand Palais (or Musée) des
Études (also known as the Palais des Beaux-Arts) and the Bâtiments des Loges
both of which were started in 1816 (the first stone of the Palais des Études was
laid on 3 May 1820).38 When Duban took over the project, only the southern
wing of the Palais was constructed together with the foundations for the
remainder of the building. Duban immediately reorganised the designs and added
plans for a series of courtyards that stretched back to the Rue Bonaparte.
Debret had indicated on some drawings the presence of a vaulted hall in the
central spaces of the Palais. However, Duban, recognising the need for addi-
tional exhibition space, instead designed a vast steel and glass cover over the
courtyard. The new designs were Renaissance Italianate in detail and involved
the teaching areas being moved to the church cloister, leaving more space in the
Palais for the display of sculpture and libraries.
The professeurs of the École expressed dissatisfaction with Duban’s design
and argued that the proposals should more emulate Debret’s original designs.39
The matter was discussed at the Conseil des Bâtiments Civils on 18 June 1833.
The Conseil loosely followed the opinion of the École professeurs, though it
144 The revival of the former Académie

Figure 8.1 The Palais des Etudes (partially built 1820–1832 by François Debret and
completed in 1840 by Félix Duban). The photograph is of the East elevation
and shows in the foreground the Premiere Cour (also known as the Cour
Bonaparte) and the Deuxième Cour (also known as the Cour d’Honour) to
the rear of a low wall upon which once stood the portico of the Château de
Gaillon (recently restored and returned to its original position at Gaillon).

also questioned the appropriateness of the attic storey on the principal façade.
Duban was disappointed with the outcome, and another meeting was held at
the Conseil seven days later. The meeting amounted to little more than agreeing
to reconvene once the form of the building had taken shape so that decisions
could be made on site. However, the matter was never readdressed, and Duban
was able to progress the project with little interference. Only the omission of
the attic storey was again requested by the Conseil, although van Zanten notes
that it became increasingly unclear as to what had been agreed.40 What is clear
is that Duban’s building does indeed have an attic storey on the East façade. In
1839 the Palais des Études was finished, and the École finally moved the vast
bulk of its activities to its new residence.
After the completion of the Palais des Études, Duban remained the Architect
for subsequent buildings that the École acquired. The only building of the
École’s estate (which almost came to form a complete urban block) that was
entirely the work of Duban was the Salle d’Exposition, a series of exhibition
spaces that fronted Quai Malaquais and contained the Salle Melpomène (1858–
1862). Above the vast rectangular hall is the Salle Foche, which is connected by
 The revival of the former Académie 145
a grand double staircase. In 1945 Auguste Perret (1874–1954) built three work-
shops on the West façade of the Salle d’Exposition together with a covered link
to the adjacent Hôtel de Chimay, which the École had bought in 1883. The
connection block to the Hôtel is decorated in the style of the 1940s with ochre
marble walls and black and white chequered floors. The Hôtel de Chimay is a
lesser-known work by Mansart dated c.1800. After 1884 the interior was almost
entirely emptied to install the École’s studios. Only the ground floor sitting
rooms on the garden side still have decorative elements dating probably from
the Premier Empire period.

The role of the Architect after the Revolution

The École des Beaux-Arts was an institution entirely separate from the Acadé-
mie des Beaux-Arts, although the Institut was able to wield considerable
authority over it. The new Académie generally comprised older académiciens
who were not shy of inflicting upon the École their conservative predications.
The result was that the École became increasingly restricted in its scope of
interest and began to lose its grip on many of the functions that Architects had
held a monopoly on during the Ancien Régime. The decline was exacerbated by
the introduction of new schools that grew from the barren academic void left
by the Revolution and which taught specialised engineering and technical sub-
jects. These schools were dedicated to particular fields of study that had been
regarded as part of the architectural jurisdiction thereby reducing the scope of
useful contribution that the architectural school could offer to the built envir-
onment. The construction of bridges, canals and highways came to be regarded
as civil engineering and eventually broke free from the mainstream architectural
curriculum, as did the study of some materials developed during the Industrial
Revolution.41 Military structures and harbours were still more areas that had
formerly been built by Architects, (since the founding of the Académie Royale
d’Architecture, primarily by Architects of that body), which became the jur-
isdiction of military engineers.
However, the reduction of the scope of architectural education cannot solely
be considered the cause of an increase in specialist schools and thus a competi-
tive educational marketplace. Those who strove to continue the academic
architectural tradition did not always eagerly desire the acquisition of new skills
or an understanding of new technologies. The structural benefits of iron, steel
and reinforced concrete, together with the methods by which these materials are
formed, impacted very little on the new architectural École, and this is reflected
in the designs which were entered for the Grand Prix. Egbert notes that,

… no frank use of exposed iron as the main structural material on a large

scale is depicted in any of the winning or published Grand Prix designs
until as late as 1865, after an iron and glass roof had been erected over the
courtyard of the École itself in 1863 by the academician Jacques-Félix
Duban.42
146 The revival of the former Académie
Leroy’s school and its descendants emphasised the importance of monumental
buildings and believed that cut stone was the best building material to achieve
this desired result.43 Conversely, the Architects regarded iron and steel as
insubstantial materials, which should only be used when fully clad in stone.
Consequently, when the engineers of the Industrial Revolution raced on with
the production of splendid and proficient structures, they were met with very
little competition from Architects.44 The structural engineers gradually broke
away from the Architects to develop a unique profession that sought to harness
the structural efficiency of metal in structures. Due to the nation’s immediate
need to defend its borders, the structural engineers were coupled with another
emerging strain of engineer that was also separating from the architectural
realm. Fortresses and siege works were again concerned primarily with func-
tional requirements and cared little for monumentality, especially at a time
when the demands were for defence rather than to show a position of military
supremacy. Egbert notes,

… a special corps of military engineers … was set up by the French army in

the late seventeenth century. … In 1716 the first official corps of civil engi-
neers was formed, the Départment des Ponts-et-Chaussées (Bridges and
Highways). Its responsibility was building bridges, canals, highways, etc.,
all of which had previously been built by architects.45

In 1793 concern that France would be invaded gained tremendous momentum.

The school of civil engineering, the École des Ponts-et-Chaussées, which
evolved in 1775, had before the Suppression taught on matters that were by
now in high demand, particularly fortification, military engineering and the
maintenance of roads (essential to enable French armies to travel to the fron-
tiers).46 However, the school was typical of French academic institutions during
the immediate aftermath of the academic suppression, in a state of complete
chaos and in no position to provide the number of graduate engineers required
to rise to the immense challenges of the time. The geometrician, Gaspard
Monge (1746–1818), and the chemist, Antoine François Comte de Fourcroy
(1755–1809), led a group of influential scholars to petition the Convention for a
new engineering school to address the need for more engineers, (although it is
likely that these scientists were more concerned with the continuation of their
studies than the Nation’s problems). The immediate requirement for more
engineers was, however, a considerable concern for the Convention. On 11
March 1794, it created the Comité des Travaux Publics to oversee the creation
of a new engineering school, the École Centrale des Travaux Publics. The doors
of the new engineering École opened on 1 December 1794 and effectively
replaced the École des Ponts et Chaussées together with several other related
ancien schools, including, at least in title, the school of the Académie Royale
d’Architecture.47 The ‘amalgamation’ enabled the École Centrale des Travaux
Publics to acquire some models and drawings from the sealed rooms of the
former Académie.48
 The revival of the former Académie 147
The institution kept its title for less than a year before the Convention
decreed on 1 September 1795 that the school’s name be changed to the École
Polytechnique.49 The change sparked a debate on education within the Con-
vention that resulted in reorganising the old schools into a single civil and
military engineering school that was to be an exemplar in all technological
fields. A decree on 22 October 1795 stated that the Polytechnic,

… is intended to train students for the artillery services; military engineer-

ing; bridges and highways and civil constructions; the mines; the building
of ships and vessels; topography; and at the same time for the free prac-
tising of those professions which require a knowledge of mathematics and
physics.50

After this decree, the matters of instruction at the École Polytechnique formed the
foundation of various technologically based faculties, which included a highly
mechanical version of architecture. The institution kept throughout its life a
string of architectural professeurs, the most famous of which was Durand.51
Durand taught from 1795 to 1830 though only on ‘principles of architecture’; the
curriculum was heavily weighted towards mathematics, chemistry and physics.
Egbert notes that Durand’s lectures,

… exalted utility, efficiency, economy, and standardization of units as ends

in design and construction in a way that engineers have always tended to
do. … Correspondingly, he did not regard as worthwhile the investigations
into the origin and character of ‘beauty’ so typical of the academic point of
view and its underlying philosophical idealism, investigations which there-
fore were the subject of much discussion at meetings of the Académie
Royale d’Architecture and Académie des Beaux-Arts.52

However, Durand was one of the most important theorists and teachers of the
early nineteenth century and became famed for his engineering approach to
architecture.53 His notoriety was in part due to his targeted audience; he mainly
instructed engineers and surveyors, as was the emphasis of the École rather than
Architects.54
Durand was also another important figure for Neoclassicism. His system of
design using simplified, repetitive, modular elements anticipated industrialised
building components, while at the same time referring to simple Greek and
early Roman Classical forms. This geometric design approach lent itself well to
an institute devoted to the design of bridges, fortifications and other public
engineering works. His systematic design methodology generally revolved round
interconnecting walls and supports within a planned grid which would deter-
mine the system of construction, (dependent upon form and span), to derive a
functional block diagram.55 Similar principles would be applied to the section
to create a logical, practical and standardised architecture. Durand was meti-
culous in the extreme and a highly intellectual yet practical character, with a
148 The revival of the former Académie
keen interest in socialism. A building commended by Durand would be one that
attained clear technical understanding and logical execution, which enclosed a
profitable use of space with elegance, and which would thus fulfil its moral
obligation to benefit an egalitarian society where unity is achieved through the
joining of its various parts. He defined architecture as,

… the art of composing and executing all private and public buildings. And
because architecture was the most expensive of all the arts, it should not be
whimsical or guided by prejudice or routine. In order to avoid wasteful
expense, architectural design had to follow closely totally rational and
immutable rules.56

More than any school before it, the École Polytechnique championed the inherent
beauty of efficient structures and therefore took a diametrically opposed philoso-
phical stance to the traditional academic pursuit of heavy monumentality.

Notes
1 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 74.
2 Egbert notes that two Architects were first appointed: Jacques Gondoin who had
won the second prize in 1759, and Charles De Wailly, who had won the Grand Prix
in 1752. The four other Architects were nominated by the first two and were Pierre-
Adain Paris (1745–1819) third prize in the Grand Prix on 1759, Étienne-Louis Boullée
(1728–1799), Antoine-François Peyre (1739–1823), winner of the Grand Prix 1762,
and Jean-Armand Raymond (1742–1811) winner of the Grand Prix 1766. Egbert, The
Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 36. n. 1.
3 The Troisième Classe was renamed Classe d’Histoire. Napoléon also changed the
title of the Deuxième Classe to Classe de la Langue et de la Littérature Français as he
did not like the ‘moral sciences and politics’ of the revolutionist ideologies.
4 Ibid. Egbert also notes that after the reform the Architects were Gondoin, Peyre and
Ramond, who were joined by Léon Dufourny (1754–1818), Jean-François-Therèse
Chalgrin (1730–1811) winner of the Grand Prix 1758, and Jean-François Haurtier
(1739–1822) winner of the Grand Prix 1765.
5 Louis also reversed Napoléon’s renaming of the Deuxième Classe; thus, it again
became the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.
6 On a stone plaque that is currently located near the entrance to the Institut de France
is an inscription of the five Académies that form the Institut; Académie Française,
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, Académie des Science, Académie des
Beaux-Arts and Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.
7 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’École des Beaux-Arts, p. 129. Leroy had become a
Professeur at the school since 1774 though he had been a member of the Academy
since 1758 and was made Professeur Auxiliaire in 1762.
8 Bonnaire, Procès-Verbaux de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts, Vol. for January, February,
March 1793, p. 377.
9 Hautecoeur, Historie de l’architecture classique en France, p. 264.
10 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 38.
11 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 70.
12 In 1795 the possessions of the former Académie were given to the École Poly-
technique, which was formed in 1794.
 The revival of the former Académie 149
13 At the time of Leroy’s work, history and science were often regarded as rival dis-
ciplines. Historians studied the human past, scientists studied nature.
14 Kisacky cites Barry Bergdoll, Léon Vaudoyer: Historian in the Age of Industry, New
York, 1994, pp. 7–36. Kisacky, ‘Julien-David Leroy’s Dualistic Method of Archi-
tectural History’, p. 261, p. 260, n. 1.
15 Ibid., p. 263.
16 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 41. Kisacky also
observes that Leroy was appointed to the Deuxième Classe of the Institut de France,
which was unusual as no vacancies existed and so a position was created. The
position was made available using a creative interpretation of the 1756 revision of
the Académie’s charter, which had reduced the number of second-class seats from
twenty to sixteen. Kisacky, ‘Julien-David Leroy’s Dualistic Method of Architectural
History’, p. 261, n. 40.
17 James Stuart and Nicholas Revett published their first volume detailing the Athenian
ruins, The Antiquities of Athens: Measured and Delineated, in 1762. Subsequent
volumes followed it in 1787, 1794 and 1816. This heavily illustrated and much
broader collection of detailed drawings came to be a more accurate and popular
authority.
18 Kisacky, ‘Julien-David Leroy’s Dualistic Method of Architectural History’, p. 261, n. 40.
19 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’École des Beaux-Arts, p. 129.
20 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 71.
21 Hautecoeur, Historie de L’Architecture Classique en France, Vol. 5, pp. 58–62. Also,
for a collection of engravings that formed the entry material for the Grand Prix
competitions during the time of Leroy see, Rosenau, The Engravings of the Grands
Prix of the French Academy of Architecture, pp. 15, 17–21, 23–171, 173–80.
22 The precise number of students is not known.
23 Egbert notes that pupils were often sent from the École Polytechnique to the École
d’Artillerie et du Génie and the École d’État Major (both were primarily military
engineering schools), and the École des Mines, the École des Construction Mar-
itimes, and the École des Manufactures. Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French
Architecture, p. 47.
24 Hautecoeur, Histoire de l’Architecture Classique en France, Vol. 5, p. 263. Chafee
notes that in total ten schools were mentioned in the decree including astronomy,
medicine, political science and music. He also suggests that the architectural school
and the school of sculpture and painting were joined in name (Chafee, ‘The Teach-
ing of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 73), although Egbert explains
that this union occurred in 1799 (Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French
Architecture, p. 38, n. 9).
25 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’École des Beaux-Arts, pp. 13–14. At the point at
which the Académie was abolished there were thirty active Membres, see Appendix 2.
26 Benoit, François, L’Art français sous la revolution et l’empire, Paris, 1897, p. 208.
27 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, pp. 38–9.
28 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’École des Beaux-Arts, p. 137, n. 3. Delaire also
notes that in 1794, 1795 and 1796 architectural competitions were not held and that
the stipend to Rome was also suspended, possibly due to social upheaval and the
safety of students.
29 Ibid.
30 A decree on 25 October 1795 had already formally revived the Grand Prix competi-
tions together with the stipend to Rome (the same decree that also formed the
Institut).
31 In 1798, the Palazzo Mancini (the home of the Académie de France à Rome prior to
its suppression) was partly burned in the riots.
32 The sum is unknown.
150 The revival of the former Académie
33 Egbert notes that prizes for the first eight years for the Prix d’Emulation were books
(probably from the library collection of the former architectural academy), but then
for two years the prizes were medals that bore a representation of Bonaparte. Egbert,
The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 39.
34 The Professeurs of l’architecture at the school from 1793 (after the abolishment of
the Académie) to 1819 (the formation of the École des Beaux-Arts) were:
1774–1803
Julien-David Leroy (1728–1803)
1804–1818
Léon Dufourny (1754–1818)
1818–1819
Louis-Pierre Baltard (1764–1846)
The Professeurs of théorie de l’architecture at the school from 1819 to 1863 were:
1819–1846
Louis-Pierre Baltard (1764–1846)
1846–1853
Guillaume-Abel Blouet (1795–1853)
1853–1863
Jean-Baptiste Lesueur (1794–1883)
The Professeurs of histoire de l’architecture at the school from 1819 to 1863 were:
1819–1840
Jean-Nicolas Huyot (1780–1840)
1840–1863
Louis-Hippolyte Lebas (1782–1867)
35 The new École comprised Sections related to the former school of architecture and
the joint school of painting and sculpture. The Sections continued to practise differ-
ing curricula, which were prescribed in the regulations of 2 December 1823 and
which remained, albeit in slightly modified forms, until a student revolt and the
subsequent decree of 6 December 1968, which split the two Sections of the École des
Beaux-Arts apart as Leroy had first hoped.
36 Van Zanten, ‘Félix Duban and the Buildings of the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 161.
The church is the oldest part of the current school. The hexagonal vault (known as
the ‘chambre forte des éloges’) was built in 1617 for Marguerite de Navarre, the
divorced wife of Henri IV. The church, which comprised a chapel, a cloister and an
enclosed court, was used as a refuge for statues and monuments during the Revolu-
tion. In 1816 the monastery formed part of the École.
37 Duban had recently returned to Paris in 1829 from a five-year stint at the Académie
de France à Rome.
38 Van Zanten, ‘Félix Duban and the Buildings of the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 161.
39 Van Zanten notes that the professeurs were Louis Pierre Baltard, A.-L.-T. Voudoyer
and Jean-Nicholas Huyot. Van Zanten, ‘Félix Duban and the Buildings of the École
des Beaux-Arts’, p. 161.
40 Van Zanten cites a letter dated 13 November 1833 from Duban to Edmond Blanc
‘expressing confusion about what the definitive project was to be’. He continues;
‘there is no evidence as to why Duban was permitted to reinstate this part of his
design’. Ibid., pp. 167–8.
41 The Industrial Revolution did not gain much momentum in France until after the
turn of the nineteenth century with the reign of Napoléon.
42 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 44.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid., p. 45.
45 Ibid.
46 In 1747 a school was formed for the Corps to train engineering draftsman; it was
named in 1775 as the École des Ponts-et-Chaussées. See, ibid., p. 46.
 The revival of the former Académie 151
47 Ibid.
48 Since 1793, Leroy had preserved the library and many sculptures of the former Aca-
démie Royale d’Architecture.
49 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 73.
50 Chafee cites Collection Baudouin, Vendémaire. An. IV, Paris, 1795, p. 263. Ibid., p. 72.
51 Other professors include Léonce Reynaud, Emmanuel Brune, Auguste Choisy and
Gustave Umbdenstock.
52 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 48.
53 He enjoyed success from the forefront of his career as an eminent pupil of Étienne-
Louis Boullée, though his own students were not well-known Architects and most of
these later studied architecture at Leroy’s school. Middleton & Watkin mention
Hubert Rohault de Fleury and his son Charles, and Émile-Jacques Gilbert in their
History of World Architecture: Architecture of the Nineteenth Century, Phaidon
Press, London, 2003.
54 Another way in which Durand’s fame escalated outside the École Polytechnique was
through his books, which were influential for a generation. Durand published his
Précis des Leçons d’architecture données à l’école polytechnique in two volumes, in
1802 & 1805 respectively. It was a rigorous, systematic and a completely reordered
chronological account of Classical architectural history. The latter volume of lectures
was the most widely read manual on architectural composition of its time and
remained in print until 1840. Like Blondel and Leroy, the treatise was used as the
basis for his lectures at the École Polytechnique. He also wrote, Recueil et paralléle
des edifices de tout genre anciens et modernes in 1800, a study of a vast collection of
buildings from the very famous to the almost unknown (and even imaginary). It was
used for the teaching and design-practice of historical buildings until the late twen-
tieth century. The scope of building included is quite phenomenal: aqueducts, pump
rooms, mosques, temples, theatres, etc., from ancient to new and these were clearly
depicted in an organised format to demonstrate a historical timeline.
55 Durand’s use of grid paper, which he had prepared, gave rise to current day graph
paper.
56 Pérez-Gómez cites Durand, Précis des Leçons d’architecture données à l’école Poly-
technique, Vol. 1, p. 3. Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science,
p. 298.
9 The Enduring Influence of the
Academic Tradition at the École

The Ancien Regime’s continued grip on processes and practices at the

École
After 1819, the École des Beaux-Arts was generally controlled by the Académie
des Beaux-Arts; the latter institution nominated the École’s professeurs (this
right was withdrawn in 1863) and controlled the Grand Prix competitions. As
most of the architectural academicians at the Académie des Beaux-Arts were ex-
Membres of the old Académie, the result was that the French architectural
academic tradition continued (mostly by enforcement) at the École in much the
same way as it had done at the former Académie. If anything, the ideology
imposed upon the École was even more rigid than that held by the suppressed
Académie. Older supporters of the classical aesthetic (from within both the
Académie des Beaux-Arts and the École) wished to defend their ancien stand-
point against the interest in ‘industrial’ materials’ ‘modern’ forms that emerged
during the nineteenth century. Thus, whereas the state of the time controlled
the Académie, the École was similarly influenced by a higher command, again
with ties to state control. The enforcement of a classical aesthetic on the École
was exacerbated by the steady increase in the number of rival technical insti-
tutions that resulted from the Industrial Revolution, which effectively removed
some of the École’s more utilitarian and practical programmes. Furthermore,
with the turmoil inflicted on the Académie still in the minds of the older
membres of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, they were determined never to let the
French architectural academic tradition be threatened again.
However, the conservational stance of the Académie des Beaux-Arts jarred
with the post-Revolution sentiment of the time. The ideological problem felt by
many new students stemmed from the relationship between the École’s classical
outlook and an emerging interest in more eclectic forms of architecture, espe-
cially as of the mid-nineteenth century. The difficulty is most noticeable when
retracing the protocol students were required to undertake to gain entry to the
École. Similar to the school of the former Académie during its latter years, a
prerequisite for entering the École was the admission into an atelier. To become
admitted to an atelier, candidates were first required to prove their ability to a
 The academic tradition at the École 153
patron; however, the occasion was also sometimes used to provide some enter-
tainment. Chafee notes that initiation ceremonies,

might consist merely of “dodging wet sponges, and singing the ‘Boulanger
March’ standing upon a drawing board”. … Sometimes a nouveau during
his initiation would be sent to another [rival] atelier to borrow something,
such as a compass that draws volutes (which no compass will do). The
unsuspecting visitor would probably get a bucket of water on his head.1

It was in the ateliers that all aspirants (members of an atelier wishing to join
the École) were indoctrinated by the anciens (older students) on classical
architecture. Nothing could be ‘designed’ without first understanding the
Orders and the rules that determined their use. When drawing the Orders,
particular emphasis was placed on shadows, which were considered the clearest
means of representing the third dimension. The patron, and sometimes other
invited guests, critiqued work once a week. Gabriel recounts how the critiques
in which he was involved were of a leisurely pace, often involving his patron,
the aged André Leconte (1894–1990) and his colleague Pierre Martin (b. 1914),
reminiscing and generally chatting about architecture. Books were prescribed
and further work was issued.
After joining an atelier, the first task of any aspirant was to prepare for an
entrance examination required to gain entry to the École. François Gabriel, one
of the last graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts, notes that ‘the main test
consisted of the design of a small building, or part of a larger one, to be done
along classical lines, and completed in one continuous, twelve-hour period’.2 It
was widely considered an outmoded and pointless test by many of the aspir-
ants, especially by those who applied during the end of the nineteenth century.
However, the École persisted with the examination on the grounds that,

Classical architecture is the dominant architectural language of our culture,

the best known, and therefore the only architectural language that can be
discussed knowledgeably and objectively by our elders. It constitutes the
fairest means of testing one’s ability to design. Furthermore, the taste level
of a design’s author is immediately apparent in a classical design. Taste
may be perceived by some as an elusive quality, but when criteria are as
well defined as they are in classical architecture, consensus is not very dif-
ficult to reach.3

The École never entirely relinquished its connections with the Classical; to do
so would be to abandon the foundations on which it was built. The reputation
of the École des Beaux-Arts was inextricably linked to its classical history.
Thus, even when the classical aesthetic had begun to be replaced with nouveau
tastes during the mid-nineteenth century, knowledge of classicism remained
paramount in the École’s ideology. After no less than three years of classical
indoctrination, students who had studied after the mid-nineteenth century were
154 The academic tradition at the École
then expected to design ‘modern’ buildings. Though the École was adamant
that a classical foundation as part of a course in modern architectural design
was the right thing to do, it could offer very little philosophical justification for
its view. Its defence was a statement that read ‘all the classical rules and prin-
ciples continue to be valid’. It continued to stress that all a student needed to do
was ‘learn to handle new construction materials and building techniques and
the rest would follow’.4 Thus, while the classical aesthetic became less pre-
valent during the latter years of the École’s existence, underlying classical
notions such as ‘character’ (the image of a building which tells of the function it
performs) remained a key emphasis; it was considered appropriate for a civic
building to imbue dignity and strength while a new paper printing press was to
stir excitement, and so on.
In his memoir, J.-François Gabriel recounts his time at the École des Beaux-
Arts during the years before its closure. In his opening paragraphs, Gabriel
describes not always being happy at the school and during his formative years
feeling he was affected by two delusions. ‘One was that design is a rigorous,
scientific process, and that if one followed this process, the result would auto-
matically be a good design. The second delusion was that Le Corbusier was
living proof of the first.’5 On one occasion Gabriel wrote a letter to Le Corbu-
sier complaining about the education offered by the École. Le Corbusier
requested a meeting to be held at his poorly lit black and white cubicle. After
flicking through a portfolio of drawings that Gabriel had brought with him, Le
Corbusier declared ‘les Beaux-Arts c’est de la merde’.6 The meeting ended with
Le Corbusier praising Gabriel for his drawing ability and invited him to be part
of a new modern group, the Congrés internationaux d’architecture moderne –
Assemblée de constructeurs pour une renovation architecturale, but nothing
came of the plan and Gabriel went back to ‘studying the Orders’.
The École comprised two types of ateliers: the atelier intérieurs, which was
led by patrons chosen by the French Government on the recommendation of the
Académie des Beaux-Arts, and atelier extérieurs, which were led by Architects
who were chosen by a group of bona fide students. The only real difference
between the two groups was, as the name suggests, the location of their pre-
mises; the former was housed within the confines of the École while the latter
was not. Though each atelier took on the flavour of its patron, they were
essentially the same. However, the number of students who attended any given
atelier varied from around twenty to two or three hundred, depending on the
popularity of the patron. 7 Since architectural design was considered the most
important part of a student’s education, most of the student’s time at the École
was spent in the confines of his or her atelier. It was here that a student was
expected to bond with his colleagues and pay respect to those in charge, or at
least those senior to him. Older patrons and even mature students of the
twentieth century felt so strongly that classical form and style was superior to
‘modern’ architecture that it was a ‘serious offence even to suggest that an
ancien might ever have been a nouveau’.8 To speak out against a patron was
met with punishment, but ‘hazing’ was generally a student affair. To degrade an
 The academic tradition at the École 155
ancien building may have had the consequence of ‘the flat part of a T-square
hitting the bare bottom of the offender a number of times’, but the measure was
never intended to cause pain. Gabriel explains that the noise of drafting equip-
ment against a culprit’s posterior was louder than one might imagine, and it
was the tradition to shout after each crack to demonstrate the gravity of the
crime rather than in response to any pain.
Candidates applying to enter the École had to be male (women were also
permitted to attend the École as of 1897),9 between the age of fifteen and thirty
(although the upper limited was lowered to twenty-five from time to time), and
they had to present a letter of recommendation from their patron. French citi-
zens also had to present documents proving their nationality, while interna-
tional students were required to produce a letter of introduction from their
ambassador. The entrance examination was held twice a year, in May and in
October, although before 1865 an entrance exam was only held once a year.
Applying after only one year of preparation in the ateliers was seen as arrogant,
although many were willing to try and it was generally thought that a trial run
could be beneficial. Some were accepted after two or three years, but many
students waited seven years or more. The examination was gruelling and strict.
An aspirant was not permitted to take any material into the loges, and was not
allowed to leave his cubicle without first handing his work to officials, where-
upon he would not be allowed to return. Food was either brought by the can-
didate or fetched by a uniformed employee of the École. Each year over a
thousand contestants fought for about eighty positions at the École. No candi-
date was allowed to compete more than six times.
As with the competitions at the Académie, aspirants who took the École
entrance exam were encouraged to think fast and first produce a parti, which
would direct the design work for the remainder of the day-long test. Upon
successful completion of the drawing examination, aspirants were then sub-
jected to a series of further tests over the course of two weeks. These shorter
exams were on matters of calculus, descriptive geometry, and architectural his-
tory and theory. The whole process was finished with a still life drawing exam.
When an aspirant had passed all the tests, he was then required to present a
portfolio of his work to a jury and answer all the questions that were being
fired his way. The final mark, which determined whether a student was admit-
ted or not, was calculated by multiplying each test result by a number that
accorded with its importance, adding the marks together, and selecting the top
level of candidates.
Having been formally accepted by the École, students (who could refer to
themselves as élèves of the École des Beaux-Arts) continued to spend most of
their time in the ateliers. It was there that students undertook two programmes,
the seconde classe and the première classe, which roughly correspond to the
British undergraduate and post-graduate system. The only significant difference
between the École and most other European architectural education systems of
the time was that students at the École were not constrained by time; their
studies were over once a sufficient number of credits (the system was never used
156 The academic tradition at the École
at the Académie) had been accrued, irrespective of how long it took to acquire
them. The École also continued the tradition set by the Académie of not char-
ging a student for its services.
The teaching system at the École appears to have been almost a mirror image
of that practised at the Académie by J.-F. Blondel. Six design problems were
issued each year; Gabriel describes an example project:

On a given day, all eligible students received their copy of a design pro-
gram … They were there for the purpose of committing themselves to a
parti in no more than eight hours. The original parti drawing was retained
by the gardiens manning the process, who identified it carefully. A carbon
copy was taken home by the student. Some four or six weeks later, the
parti sketch was reunited with the completed project and attached to it by
the gardiens for the benefit of the judging committee. Their first act was to
compare the two. If they did not match, you were out of the running, and
you received no credit for your work. But you did learn two important
lessons. One was to think well and quickly. The other, not to change your
parti, such as it was, but to develop it as best you could.10

The average pass rate was twenty-five per cent. On 22 May 1963 the news-
paper, Combat, reported that of 450 submissions only 42 passed.11 The exams
in the première classe were considerably more taxing. Whereas projects in the
seconde classe were presented on 80  125 cm sheets that had been stretched on
a frame, the size of paper used in the première classe was 125  160 cm, and a
single sheet was to include all necessary information. The layout, therefore, was
of crucial importance.
The process of evaluating student work was basic and continued a similar
format to that practised at the Académie. After a critique or viewing, a stu-
dent’s project was considered and issued with either a pass or fail mark. Most
work was considered competent, if not always pass-worthy, but on occasion,
work was considered so unacceptable that it was not allowed to leave the ate-
lier for fear of humiliating the patron. In all instances, judgements were done
‘blind’, that is, the jurors were not permitted to know the name of the con-
testant and all judgements were undertaken behind closed doors. Thus, it
appears that David did not, in fact, have his way. Due to the large number of
competitors, each student was afforded about forty-five seconds of the jury’s
attention. Therefore, the student was keen to make his designs instantly legible.
After determining which entries were worthy of passing and thus gaining cred-
its, the jury then further discussed which entry was best and most deserving of
a medal. Other than prestige, medals also offered students double or sometimes
triple credits thus reducing the number of projects required to pass to graduate.
The day after the competition was reviewed, students were allowed into the
exhibition space where work had been critiqued to find out their marks.
Moreover, Gabriel explains that the ‘show’ was perhaps one of the most
important events in a student’s diary.
 The academic tradition at the École 157
Students flocked in to look and to figure out what made some designs good
and others bad. Spirited discussions erupted among students, often echoing
similar exchanges between the faculty during the review. Denser crowds
gathered in front of the outstanding projects, which had been assembled in
one place. Often, their superiority was obvious, and there was much to
learn from just looking at them. In other cases there was a certain amount
of frustration because we had to second-guess the jury, but this is precisely
what forced us to look closely and to reflect. I think we learned more from
that process than we would have from an official statement made by the
review committee.12

In addition to these projects students of the seconde classe were required to

attend courses and pass exams on various subjects. Courses in architectural
history, calculus, descriptive geometry, the stability of structures, perspective,
physics and chemistry of construction were each a year long. Further courses on
architectural theory were held, but were never well attended because there was
no exam set to test a student’s understanding. Only lectures on construction
were well attended, and many of the other lecture series appear to have been
largely ignored; it was possible to take an exam in a subject without ever
attending a lecture. The première classe had fewer additional courses, which
were focused on more professional aspects of architecture. Gabriel recounts
that on one occasion he received a medal for his result in a law exam, but notes
that he did not like the subject and was only well prepared because he dreaded
having to repeat the course.13
The competitions are perhaps the most unifying connection between the
École and the Académie. The École continued the academic tradition of holding
both the annual Grand Prix competitions (after 1863 it became known as the
Grand Prix de Rome) and monthly Prix d’Emulation competitions. Indeed, the
Grand Prix competition changed very little; the most discernible difference was
one of architectural style during the very last years of the École’s existence.14
Thus, as with the Académie, the competition system remained the most
important measure of a student’s ability; indeed, until the introduction of the
Diplôme in 1869, it was the only measure available.
The architectural style of Grand Prix competition submissions at the École,
like that of the Académie, was evidently classical, and for the same reasons.
The students’ progressive tendencies were self-repressed, as they would other-
wise have no hope of gaining an award from the predominantly conservative
juries set up by the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The annual competition
remained the most sought-after accolade the École had to offer. Chafee notes
that many students made numerous attempts to win the prize:

Léon Vaudoyer, Jules André, Léon Ginain, L.-M.-H. Sotais, and René
Patouillard-Demoraine each won the Grand Prix on his fifth attempt. Other
men tried as many times without success. Constant Mayaux and Tony
Garnier each won in his sixth competition, and Jean-Louis Pascal in his
158 The academic tradition at the École
seventh. Edmond Paulin was en loge four months every year from 1868
through 1875; at last, on his eighth try, he won.15

However, the traditionally accepted boundaries that enshrined classicism did

gradually move; a keen eye could spot that the rational simplicity that found
favour at the Académie des Beaux-Arts began to be coupled with a rationalist
desire for economy and structural expedience that marked ‘modernism’.
The Académie and École also shared the rule that only French citizens could
enter the competition. However, some differences become apparent when
reviewing the competition programmes held at the two schools. For the most
part, the Grand Prix competition programmes at the École can be divided into
three categories: public buildings (including schools, administrative and service
buildings, town halls, municipal buildings, law courts, exchanges, museums,
libraries, post offices, hospitals, alms-houses, markets, theatres, cafés and
fountains); ecclesiastical buildings (including chapels, cathedrals, churches,
convents, bishop’s residences, mosques and synagogues); and private buildings
(including townhouses, country mansions, collectors’ houses, and hunting
lodges).16 Rarely did the École hold a competition to design a royal building or
a house for a wealthy individual, and all programmes related to huge structures.
As has been discussed earlier, the Académie was entirely different in this
respect, especially during its formative years.
The monthly competitions at the École were not so exact a replica of the Prix
d’Emulation held at the Académie, mostly because they were judged by the
École itself rather than the more traditionally minded members of the Académie
des Beaux-Arts. At the École, all students were required to vie for at least two
Prix d’Emulations each year, which were more practical and innovative than the
annual competitions. As with the Académie, every competition programme was
written by the professeur of architectural theory; thus, his position within the
school remained the most important. Often a student would register him or
herself as partaking in a competition without ever intending to complete the
projet rendus, and practise the esquisses or even test the difficulty of the com-
petition to gauge the likelihood of winning.
It was only in the final years of the École that the Grand Prix competition
entries dramatically veered from its classical roots. The move was caused by
pent-up anti-academic sentiments held by students and teaching staff at the
École, which was coupled with the prevailing interest in modernist architecture
that emerged during the 1820s. The disparity provoked riots in 1830 and proved
to be a bone of contention until 1968. Little evidence of the struggle is visible in
the student’s submissions for the Grand Prix competition until 1924, as the
tremendous prestige allotted to winning the Grand Prix, and the almost certain
financial prosperity that followed (fashionable clients desired noted Architects
to design their building) was too great a temptation; thus, competition entries
were designed to meet the approval of the traditionally minded juries rather
than present any form of progressive ideology.
 The academic tradition at the École 159
However, Egbert notes that ‘in 1826 students disrupted the eulogy of a con-
servative architect-academician delivered by Quatremère de Quincy at the
annual séance publique of the Académie des Beaux-Arts so that police had to
clear the hall’.17 The rebellious spirit was inspired by Henri Labrouste (1801–
1875), who was the first Architect trained in the academic tradition and who
spoke on the importance of buildings reflecting the region in which they were
built, and that they should also relate to the human figure rather than abstract
ratios relating to the Orders. His outspoken views on eclecticism were among
the first to have been heard within the confines of the École, and he was one of
the first to use exposed iron to express a building’s monumentality.18 By 1840
Félix Duban had finished his pioneering structural ironwork at the Palais des
Études (the home of the École) though it is clear that the use of iron did not
necessitate a rejection of classicism. Capitals and bases were given ornament,
and roof members were rounded to emulate the Roman arch.
In 1869 the Diplôme d’architecte was introduced, which was the first formal
recognition that a student had successfully completed a course of study at the
École. Before this time no student ‘graduated’ (either at the former Académie or
the École), he simply won a Grand Prix, finished at the age of thirty, or left on
his own accord. In some instances students acquired the Diplôme within six
years; however, most took longer, and some never gained enough credits for
their stay at the École to be formally honoured. On 27 June 1887 the Diplôme
was issued to all living winners of the Grand Prix, and during the following few
years it became a highly sought-after accolade. The international reputation of
the École soared and it soon attracted a large number of international students.
The migration was so overwhelming that the French students complained in a
pamphlet issued in 1886 entitled De l’envahissement de l’École des beaux-arts
par les étrangers: Réclamation des élèves français. 19 Its international reputation
also started to influence foreign architectural institutions, especially in America.
By the dawn of the twentieth century, foreign influence had further developed
an interest in the ‘modern movement’ at the École and especially the use of
reinforced concrete. The innate conservatism of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
relentlessly restricted the École’s involvement with modern versions of archi-
tectural design and looked upon reinforced concrete as ‘unsuited to monu-
mental architecture’.20 Nevertheless, for the 1924 Grand Prix competition
Alfred Audoul (1891–1963) submitted a reinforced concrete design, although it
did not win. However, his second attempt in the following year, which also
employed reinforced concrete, did. As of that year, the Grand Prix competitions
dramatically changed. The winning design of 1929 was the last to be in the
traditional ‘Beaux-Arts’ style; all remaining winners were of the ‘modern’ style.
In 1962 the programme was overtly ‘modern’, it even stated that the building
should ‘commemorate one of the greatest figures of our time, Charles Le Cor-
busier’.21 Graduation from the École earned a person a great deal of respect.
Chafee considered ‘if a former student could rightfully call himself both an
architect and an ancien élèves de l’École des Beaux-Arts, probably the latter title
160 The academic tradition at the École
meant more. … Outside France in those years, an architect who had studied at
the École in Paris won respect simply for having been there.’22

The enduring influence of the academic architectural educational

tradition
During the 1950s, the École started to feel the stress caused by the weight of its
own success as it grew to an intolerable size. In 1894 the number of architecture
students at the school was 813, by 1953 the school attempted had on its register
more than 2,300 students. In addition to the burdensome multitude of students,
structural reforms were imposed upon the intuition by successive governments.
In September 1958 Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) became President of France
and proceeded in the following year to establish the Ministry of Cultural
Affairs, to which was passed the right to control the École. The first French
Ministère de la Culture was André Malraux (1901–1976), who was sympathetic
to the ‘modern’ movement and saw the École as an antiquated object of the
past. On 2 December 1959 Malraux issued a decree that shortened the duration
of time that students were permitted to complete their Grand Prix designs from
ninety-six days to thirty-six days. This reduction led to less thorough designs on
fewer and smaller pieces of paper and generally devalued the competition
entirely. In 1966 students were not permitted to use colour. In line with de
Gaulle’s policy of decentralisation, Malraux had previously introduced in 1962
numerous national schools of architecture, which also carried the right to
award the Diplôme; thus, they were placed on an equal footing as that of the
École. Furthermore, during the 1960s Malraux authorised the cleaning of all
Parisian buildings at the considerable expense of the Government; the only area
not to be cleaned was the Latin Quarter, home of the École and University.
Meanwhile, the concours received meagre prize money, and student architects
began to question the importance of their education.
In May 1968, students at the Sorbonne University, Paris, rioted after months
of striking, and the École followed suit.23 Students of the architectural section
of the École seized the school’s buildings until they were forcibly removed on
the night of 26–27 June. The buildings were not reopened after the summer
recess, and on 6 December 1968, a decree drafted by Malraux set about a total
overhaul of the French architectural educational system. The responsibility of
teaching architecture was removed from the École des Beaux-Arts, and the
Grand Prix was abolished, together with all other architectural concours. The
decree of 1968 brought an end to the architectural section of the École des
Beaux-Arts.
Having existed at the Académie for just under 130 years, and École for over
160 years, Malraux announced that the academic system practised at the École
had become irrelevant and declared that it is to be replaced with a ‘better
system’.
In the wake of the École, Malraux created thirteen Unités Pédagogiques
d’Architecture (UPAs); these effectively replaced existing architectural schools in
 The academic tradition at the École 161
the provinces of France, and a further five Unités replaced the former archi-
24

tecture section of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In February 1969 the number
of Parisian Unités increased to six, then in July 1969 it rose to eight, and then
again in October 1975, the number reached nine. In 1986 the schools were col-
lectively given the name École d’Architecture (EA), and later in 2005 they became
known as the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture (ENSA). 25
The contribution that the Académie made to architecture during its lifetime is
unmatched, and the tradition it started will undoubtedly continue in architectural
education for many more generations. Though the tradition existed at the Aca-
démie and École for almost 300 years and spanned both the French Revolution
and the Industrial Revolution, it survived as an almost unchanging approach to
architecture. The tradition tied the Académie and École together; both were
formed for political purposes, both were home to some of the most eminent
architectural pioneers of the day, both raised the social status of the Architect,
both had their enemies, and both were closed as a result of student riots.
The French academic architectural tradition remains prevalent in many con-
temporary schools of architecture; students are required to demonstrate their
worthiness before enrolling, and most students still work for credits and tailor
their designs to impress the Patron. Many students continue to work over and
above conventional hours to amass the material required for a critique, only for
it to be judged in minutes. The underlying pedagogical system, whereby the
Patron enjoys a position over those who offer up their work for judgement
remains, although outspoken rebels still exist, as does the studio, the teamwork,
the raucous celebrations and the disappointments. When style is disentangled
from the Académie and Beaux-Arts systems, it is apparent that the values and
methods of the academic tradition remain in architectural schools throughout
the world today.

Notes
1 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, pp. 92–3.
2 Gabriel, François, ‘The École des Beaux-Arts: The Final Years’, The Classicist:
Annual of the Institute for the Study of Classical Architecture, No. 4, 1997, p. 7.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., pp. 10–11.
5 Ibid., p. 6.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid., p. 7.
8 Ibid.
9 Women were forbidden to partake in the Grand Prix competition until 1903, and no
woman ever won the prize. They were also not awarded the Diplôme qualification
until 1924, fifty-five years after its introduction at the École.
10 Gabriel, ‘The École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 10.
11 Ibid., p. 11.
12 Ibid., p. 13.
13 Ibid., p. 13.
14 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 38.
15 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 88.
162 The academic tradition at the École
16 Jacques, Annie, ‘The Programmes of the Architectural Section of the École des
Beaux-Arts’, in The Beaux-Arts: And Nineteenth Century French Architecture, ed.
Robin Middleton, p. 62.
17 Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, p. 51.
18 Ibid., p. 59.
19 Ibid., , p. 68.
20 Ibid., p. 75.
21 Ibid., p. 84.
22 Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, p. 85.
23 The riots started with the Sociology students at the University and were exacerbated
when the police set up barricades.
24 The institutions that the Unités replaced were based in Rouen (1904); Rennes, Lille,
Marseilles, Montpellier (1905); Lyon (1906); Strasbourg (1921); Grenoble (1925);
Bordeaux (1928); Toulouse (1940); Algiers (1940–1962); Nantes (1945); Clermont-
Ferrand, Nancy (dates refer to when the original institutions were formed). For-
merly, these schools had been under the managerial jurisdiction of the Ministère de
l’Éducation Nationale and the Direction Générale des Beaux-Arts, under the peda-
gogical jurisdiction the Parisian École, though they had been attached financially and
administratively to their respective municipalities. The course structure, exams and
competitions were all the same as that practised at the Paris school; the juries were
even made up of, in part, visiting Parisian teachers.
25 At the time of writing, the École Nationale Supérieure of Architecture (ENSA)
comprises twenty schools, six of which are in Paris.
Appendix 1

Salient institutional titles associated with

academic architectural education in Paris

Académie (Royale) d’Architecture

Jean-Baptiste Colbert and Nicolas-François Blondel founded the Académie
d’Architecture on 31st December 1671. It received formal royal accreditation in
May 1699 whereupon it became the Académie Royale d’Architecture. It was
abolished on 8 August 1793.
On 17 August 1793 Julian-David Leroy started an informal and unnamed
‘school’ and continued the teaching of student architects. Julian-David Leroy
continued the schooling of students on an informal basis. On 5 January 1794,
formal responsibility for teaching students of the former Académie was handed
to Leroy’s school, which was renamed École Spéciale d’Architecture.
For approximately six months in 1794, the École Polytechnique led by Gas-
pard Monge, Comte de Péluse, was institutionally recognised as the successor of
the school of the former Académie. In 1795, all functions (other than teaching
students) of the former Académie were passed to the newly formed Institut
National des Sciences et des Arts.

École des Beaux-Arts

In the immediate aftermath of the suppression of the Académie Royale
d’Architecture, students were taught at an informal, unrecognised and unnamed
school led by Julian-David Leroy. On 25 October 1795, the school was officially
recognised by the National Convention, and it became known as the École
Spéciale d’Architecture (1795–1799). On 31 March 1799, the architecture school
was then joined with the school of the former art académie and collectively
entitled as École Spéciale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture (1799–1807).
When the school was evicted from the Louvre in 1807 its name was changed to
École Impériale et Spéciale des Beaux-Arts (1807–1816). With the restoration of
the monarchy in 1816, the school name was changed again to École Royale et
Spéciale des Beaux-Arts (1816–1819). Three years later on 4 August 1819, the
school was renamed yet again to the École (Royale) des Beaux-Arts (1819–1968)
where Royale was used intermittently, according to the ruling state of the time.
164 Salient institutional titles associated with academic architectural
It is little wonder that, given the long list of titles given to the school of the
former Académie, the school is often simply referred to throughout this period
as the École des Beaux-Arts.

Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture

After student riots in 1968, the architectural section of the École des Beaux-Arts
was divorced from the remainder of the school and abolished. The French
Ministère de la Culture of the time, André Malraux, formed in its place a series
of Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture. The Unité Pédagogiques that effectively
replaced existing art and architectural schools outside Paris include, Bordeaux
(1928), Clemont-Ferrand (1968), Grenoble (1925), Lille (1905), Lyon (1906),
Marseille (1905), Montpellier (1905), Nancy (1968), Nantes (1945), Rennes
(1905), Rouen (1904), Saint-Etienne (1971), Strasbourg (1921), Toulouse (1895).
The Unité Pédagogiques formed in Paris are as follows:

 Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 1 Formed in December 1968 and

initially led by Francis Quénard, Jacques Kalisz, Paul Chemetov and Wila-
bimar Mitrofanoff. It was renamed École d’Architecture de Paris-Villemin
(1986), École d’Architecture de Paris-Malaquais (2001), and École Natio-
nale Supérieure d’architecture Paris-Malaquais (2007). It is the only Unité
Pédagogiques that currently resides on the site of the former École des
Beaux-Arts.
 Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 2 Formed in December 1968 and
initially led by Paul la Marche, André Ménard, Yves Jenkins, Xavier
Arséne-Henry and Alain Lenormand. In 1986 it was abolished and many
teachers and students joined the Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 9.
 Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 3 Formed in December 1968 and
comprised mostly of students from the Arretche and Beaudoin workshops.
It was initially led by Louis Arretche, Henri Bourdon, Richard Helmy and
Philippe Panerai. It was renamed École d’Architecture de Versailles (1986),
and École Nationale Supérieure d’architecture Paris-Versailles (2005).
 Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 4 Formed in December 1968 and
initially led by Noël Lemaresquier, Michel Marot, Georges Dengler, Otello
Zavaroni, Jean Wojniak and Henri Vicariot. It was renamed École
d’Architecture de Paris-Conflans (1986), amalgamated with Unité Pédago-
giques d’Architecture no. 9 and collectively called École d’Architecture de
Paris-Val-de-Seine (2001), and École Nationale Supérieure d’architecture
Paris-Val-de-Seine (2007).
 Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 5 Formed in December 1968 and
initially led by Pierre Vivien, George Pingusson, Jean Bossu and François
Bigot. It was renamed École d’Architecture de Paris-la-Defense (1986). In
2001 it was formally abolished; however, it unofficially continued until
2003, after which it closed and many teachers and students joined the Unité
Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 8.
 Salient institutional titles associated with academic architectural 165
 Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 6 Formed in February 1969 and
initially led Robert Joly, Pierre Devinoy, David-Georges Emmerich, Oliver
LaHalle and Louis Forgia. It was renamed École d’Architecture de Paris-la-
Villette (1986), and École Nationale Supérieure d’architecture Paris-la-Vill-
ette (2005). The school is numerically the largest unité in Paris.
 Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 7 Formed in December 1969 as a
result of a split at Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 5. It was initially
led by Stéphane Duchâteau, Paul Maymont, Roland Schweitzer, Henri
Ciriani and Georges Benoît. It was renamed École d’Architecture de Paris-
Tolbiac (1986). The Unité Pédagogiques was abolished and replaced with
the École d’Architecture de Marne-la-Vellée (1999), located 20 km east of
Paris centre. It was later renamed again École Nationale Supérieure
d’architecture Marne-la-Vellée (2005).
 Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 8 Formed in July 1969 as a result of
a split at Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 6. It was initially led by
Bernard Huet and Jacques Fredet, and Henri Raymond. It was renamed
École d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville (1986) and absorbed Unité Pédago-
giques d’Architecture nos. 5 and 7. It was later renamed again École
Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville (2005).
 Unité Pédagogiques d’Architecture no. 9 Formed in 1975 and initially led by
Michel Marot and Pierre Vigor. It was renamed École d’Architecture de
Paris-la-Seine (1986). In 2001 it was amalgamated with Unité Pédagogiques
d’Architecture no. 4 and collectively called École d’Architecture de Paris-
Val-de-Seine (2001), then renamed again École Nationale Supérieure
d’architecture Paris-Val-de-Seine (2007).

Institut National des Sciences et des Arts (Institut de France)

The Institut National des Sciences et des Arts was founded by the Convention
National on 25 October 1795, it consolidated all the former académies in one
(its functions included all those of the former académies, with the exception of
the teaching sections of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture and
the Académie Royale d’Architecture).
This institution originally had 3 classes:

 Première Classe: Classe des Sciences Mathématiques et Physiques.

 Deuxième Classe: Classe des Sciences Morales et Politiques.
 Troisième Classe: Classe de Littérature et Beaux-Arts. (A union of Acadé-
mie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Académie Royale de Musique and
the Académie Royale d’Architecture.)

In 1806 it became known as the Institut de France and was reorganised into
four classes:
166 Salient institutional titles associated with academic architectural
 Première Classe: Sciences Mathématiques et Physiques (corresponding to
the Académie Royale des Sciences).
 Deuxième Classe: Langue et Littérature Française (corresponded to the
Académie Française).
 Troisième Classe: Histoire et la Littérature Ancienne (corresponding to the
Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Médailles, later named Académie des
Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres).
 Quatrième Classe: Beaux-Arts (corresponding to a union of the Académie
Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Académie Royale de Musique and the
Académie Royale d’Architecture).

In 1816 the classes were renamed académies, and in 1832 the Institut was
further reorganised into five sections:

 Académie Française (initiated 1635, suppressed 1793, restored 1803)

 Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (initiated 1663)
 Académie des Sciences (initiated 1666)
 Académie des Beaux-Arts (created 1816) Merger of the following:
 Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture (initiated 1648)
 Académie de Musique (initiated 1669)
 Académie d’Architecture (initiated 1671)
 Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (initiated 1795, suppressed
1803, re-established 1832)

Académie des Beaux-Arts

The Académie des Beaux-Arts was founded in 1803 as the Classe des Beaux-
Arts though it was renamed the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1816. The Acadé-
mie consists of the following sections:

 Section de Peinture*
 Section de Sculpture*
 Section d’Architecture*
 Section de Gravure*
 Section de Composition musicale*
 Section Membres libres
 Section Créations artistiques dans le cinéma et l’audiovisuel

(* Denotes sections formed at the inauguration of the Académie des Beaux-Arts)

At its inauguration, the Section d’Architecture consisted of six architects
(increased to eight in 1816) that met weekly. It also held annual séance publique in
October, published papers presented before it, wrote the programme for judging
submissions for the Grand Prix de Rome d’Architecture, named the director of the
Académie de France à Rome, and evaluated the envois of pensionnaires.
Appendix 2

Membres of the Académie d’Architecture

The following list is of the Membres of the Académie d’Architecture with the
year in which they were offered the position. The list is mostly compiled from
the following documents: Donald Drew Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in
French Architecture: Illustrated by the Grand Prix de Rome (edited for pub-
lication by David Van Zanten), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1980; E.
Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 1793–1907, Paris,
1907; and Richard Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts’, inThe Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts; The Museum of
Modern Art, ed. Arthur Drexler, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1977.
The names marked with * denote the 30 academics in training during the
suppression of the academy in 1793.

1671 Blondel N.-F.

Le Vau F.
Bruand L.
Gittard D.
Le Pautre A.
Mignard P.
D’Orbay F.
Félbien A
1673 Perrault C.1
1675 Mansart J. H.2
1678 La Motte-Coquart
Daucourt
Gobert
1681 Lenotre A.
1685 Bullet P.
1687 De la Hire P.
De Cotte R.
1694 Desgodets A.3
1696 Félbien J. F.(son)4
1968 Le Maistre
1699 Gabriel J. J.
168 Membres of the Académie d’Architecture
Gobert
Lambert P.
Cailleteau
Mollet A. C.
Mansard-Delisle
Le Maistre (son)
1700 Rivet5
Poitevin
Prévost
1705 D’Orbay (son)
1706 De La Hire (son)
Delespine N.
Bruand F.
1709 Boffrand G.6
1711 Decotte J.-R.
1715 Lecuyer
1716 Beausire J.
1717 Desgots7
Jossenay
Tannevot M.
Mathieu
1718 Mollet A.-A.(son)
Dulin
1720 Hardouin-Marsart J.-A.8
Aubert J.
De la Guespière J.
Leroux J.-B.
1723 Cailletau J.(son)
Vigny
1724 Garnier J.-C.
De Cotte L.
1725 Aubert
Billaudel9
1728 De la Rue J.-B.
Gabriel A.-J.
Benoist
Blondel Jean-F.
Contant D’Ivry
Delespée I.
1730 l’Abbé Camus10
Vinage
1732 Chevotet J.M.
Beausire J.-B.-A.(son)
1734 De Luzy
Mollet L.-F.(son)
 Membres of the Académie d’Architecture 169
1735 Lécuyer C.
Simonnet
Loriot
Mansard J.-H.
Aubry
Guillot
Moranzel
1757 Hupeau
*Peronnet J.-R.
1758 Roussett
Pluyette
*Leroy J.-D.
1762 Desproux P.-L.
*Coustou
*Desmaisons
Belicard G.-C.
*Boullée E.-L.
1763 Gabriel A.-A.
1765 Rogemortes
1767 Peyre M.-J.11
*De Wailly C.
1762 De Lestrade
*Sedaine M.-J.
*Mauduit
1769 *Trouard L.-F.
1770 *Chalgrin J.-F.-T.
1771 *Jardin N.
1773 *Guillaimot C.-A.
*Ledoux C.-N.
*Couture G.
1774 Billaudel J.-R.
*Gondouin J.
1775 *Mique R.
1776 *Cherpitel M.
*Heutier J.-F.
*Belissard
*Antoine J.-D.
1777 *Petre A.-F.
1780 *Paris A.-F.
1781 *Brongniart A.-T.
1780 *Raymond J.-A
1785 *Debourge A.-J.
1786 *Poyet B.
1791 *Darnaudin
170 Membres of the Académie d’Architecture
Notes
1 It is not clear whether Claude Perrault was a member of the Académie. Though his
name is listed in the Archives de l’Art Français (Vol. 1.), Lemonnier suggests that a
clerical error suggests that Perrault was a member when he was officially not.
However, his close relationship with members and his outstanding influence on
architecture at the time effectively gave him a free pass into the academy with
member’s privileges. Lemonnier, Procès-Verbaux de l’Académie Royale d’Archi-
tecture, Vol.I, pp. XVII–XXII.
2 Mansart also became the Superintendent in 1699.
3 During the rule of Desgodets the Académie left the royal palace to go to the old
queen’s quarters at the Louvre. Also, Villacerf, the superintendent at the time
instructed Desgodets to cease giving lessons to those who were not fee-paying stu-
dents, ‘élèves’, of the Académie.
4 In place of his father.
5 In 1701 a competition was held with the prize of gold and silver medals.
6 Félbien organised the payments of allowances and fees.
7 In 1717 the Académie comprised forty-nine academics in the first class, forty-six in
the second class, and increased the number of honouree members, unaffiliated
associates, regional correspondents and others affiliated to the Académie.
8 The Académie presented six candidates for two free places in the second class.
D’Antin chose Mansart and Aubert, the first on the list.
9 Billaudel was elected a member of the Académie without Royal consent.
10 Courtonne and l’Abbé Camus were employed as Professors with a salary of
4200.00fr.
11 The Marquis of Marigny named Peyre Senior Architect of the second class and De
Wailly Senior Architect of the first class. The Académie actively proposed their
enrolment to the superintendent and king. The king disregarded the proposals;
however, twenty-eight other academics petitioned the superintendent and their
requests were eventually granted. The Marquis of Marigny prevented the winners of
the Grand Prix from attending Rome and nominated in their place other students.
Appendix 3

Winners of the Grand Prix competitions

The following list is of the first and second Grand Prix competition winners at
the Académie d’Architecture. Against the date is the title of the competition.
Dates, competition titles and winners were recorded in the following docu-
ments: Collection des Prix que l’Académie d’Architecture proposait et cour-
onnait tous les ans: Tome premier, Paris; Grands Prix d’Architecture: Projets
couronnés par l’Académie des Beaux-Arts de France: Publiés par D. Avanzo et
Comp, Liége, 1842; Projects d’Architecture et autres productions de cet art qui
ont mérités les Grands Prix, Paris, 1806. From 1774, academicians were per-
mitted to appoint their own committees for the assessment of prizes. At the
same time the academicians decided to publish the Grand Prix designs. Addi-
tional notes on winning schemes are recorded in E. Delaire, Les Architectes
élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 1793–1907, Paris, 1907; and Donald Drew
Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture: Illustrated by the
Grand Prix de Rome, ed. David Van Zanten, Princeton University Press, 1980.

1702 Un Portail et un plan d’une église

Grande Médaille Jacquier Jacquet
Petite Médaille Jean Baptiste LeRoux
No competitions were held between 1702 and 1720.
1720 Un Entrée de Palais dorque
Premier Prix ? Bucue
Second Prix ? Guillot
1721 Un Plan d’église de vingt toises en carré
Premier Prix Jean-Michel Chevotet
Second Prix Charles-Jean-Michel Le Joilvet
1722 Un Arc de triomphe
Premier Prix Jean-Michel Chevotet
Second Prix Charles-Jean-Michel Le Joilvet
1723 Un Hôtel
Premier Prix Jean Pinard
Second Prix Louis Mouret
Delaire notes that the 1723 competition comprised five entries.
1724 Un Grand Autel pour une église cathédrale
172 Winners of the Grand Prix competitions
Premier Prix Jean-Pierre Boncourt
Second Prix Pierre-Etienne Lebon
1725 Un Eglise de couvent de religieuses
Premier Prix Pierre-Etienne Lebon
Second Prix Etienne Cléret
Lebon was sent to Rome.
1726 Un Portail d’église
Premier Prix François Carlier
Deuxième Prix Charles-Gilbert Aufranc
1727 Un Hôtel
Premier Prix Jean-François Gallot
Second Prix Eustache-Joseph De Bourge
1728 Un Château
Premier Prix ? Demarest
Second Prix Eustache-Joseph De Bourge
1729 Un Eglise
Premier Prix Eustache-Joseph De Bourge
Deuxième Prix Villard
1730 Un Arc de triomphe
Premier Prix Louis Daviler
Deuxième Prix Pierre Laurent
Delaire notes that the 1730 competition comprised ten entries.
1731 Un Bâtiment carré de vingt-cinq toises de face
Premier Prix François Marteau
Deuxième Prix Pierre Rousset
1732 Un Portail d’église
Premier Prix Jean LeGeay
Second Prix François-Médard De Mercy
1733 Un Place publique
Premier Prix Jacques Haneuse
Second Prix Charles-François Bailleul
1734 Un Autel principal d’église et chapelle
Premier Prix Jean-Philippe Wattebled
Second Prix Louis-Jean Laurent
1735 Une Galarie avec une chapelle et un salon
Premier Prix Louis-Jean Laurent
Second Prix Jean-Louis Pollevert
1736 Une Superbe Maison de campagne
Premier Prix Jean-Louis Pollevert
Second Prix Maximilien Brébion
1737 Deux Escaliers, pour un hôtel et pour un palais
Premier Prix Gabriel-Pierre-Martin Dumont
Second Prix Laurent Lindet
Delaire notes that the 1737 competition comprised only the winning
contenders. Dumont was sent to Rome.
 Winners of the Grand Prix competitions 173
1738 Une Porte d’une grand ville
Premier Prix Nicolas-Marie Potain
Second Prix François-Nicolas Lancret
Egbert notes that designs in 1738 were initially rejected because they
were said to resemble a triumphal arch rather than a city gate; stu-
dents were required to resubmit alternative designs.
1739 Une Ecurie pour un prince souverain
Premier Prix Jean-Pierre D’Orbay
Second Prix Maximilien Brébion
1740 Un Jardin de quatre cents toises pour un château
Premier Prix Maximilien Brébion
Second Prix Pierre-François Cordier
1741 Un Choeur d’église cathédrale
Premier Prix Nicolas-Henri Jardin
Second Prix Claude Hermand
1742 La Façade d’un hôtel de ville
Premier Prix Claude Hermand
Second Prix Louis-Denis Le Camus
1743 Une Chapelle avec porche et sacristie
Premier Prix Pierre Moreau
Second Prix Pierre-François Cordier
1744 Une Grande Bibliotèque
Delaire notes that no prizes were awarded in 1744 (competitors per-
mitted outsiders into their lodges and accused each other of dis-
honesty); awards were issued in 1746.
1745 Un Phare sur un rocher
Premier Prix Edmonde-Alexandre Petitot
Second Prix Michel-Barthélemy Hazon
1746 Un Hôtel
Premier Prix François Brébion
Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1744)
Second Prix Nicolas De Pigage
François-Hippolyte Lélu (1744)
Delaire notes that the 1746 competition comprised ten entries.
1747 Un Arc de triomphe
Premier Prix Charles Bellicard
Second Prix Jacques-François Giroux
1748 Une Bourse de commerce
Premier Prix Charles Pavis
Second Prix François-Hippolyte Lélu
1749 Un Temple à la paix
Premier Prix François-Dominique Barreau de Chafdeville
Second Prix Julien-David Leroy
Delaire notes that the 1749 competition comprised seven entries.
1750 Une Orangerie voûtée
174 Winners of the Grand Prix competitions
Premier Prix Julien-David Leroy
Second Prix Michel-Barthélemy Hazon
1751 Une Fontaine publique de decoration d’architecture
Premier Prix Marie-Joseph Peyre
Second Prix Pierre-Louis Moreau-Desproux
1752 Une Façade de Palais
Premier Prix Charles De Wailly
Second Prix Pierre Hélin
1753 Une Galerie de cinquante toises avec un salon
Premier Prix Louis-François Trouard
Second Prix Louis-Heri Jardin
1754 Une Salon des trois art: Peinture, sculpture et architecture
Premier Prix Pierre Hélin
Second Prix Jean-René Billaudel
1755 Une Chapelle sépulcrale
Premier Prix Louis-Nicolas Louis
Second Prix Etienne Boucard
1756 Un Pavillon du milieu d’un palais
Premier Prix Henri-Antoine Menaire
Second Prix Jacques-Philippe Houdon
Delaire notes that the competition in 1757 ( Salle de concert) was
annulled because students left and returned to their esquisse designs;
awards were issued the following year.
1758 Un Pavillion sur le bord d’une riviére à l’angle d’une terrasse
Premier Prix Mathurin Cherpitel (1757 award)
Claude-Jean-Baptiste Jallier
Second Prix Claude-Baptiste Jallier (1757 award)
Jacques Gondoin
1759 Une Académie à monter cheval
Premier Prix Antoine Leroy
Second Prix Joseph-Elie-Michel Lefebvre
Delaire notes that the 1759 competition comprised 28 entries.
1760 Une Eglise paroissiale
Premier Prix Joseph-Elie-Michel Lefebvre
Second Prix Claude-Jean-Baptiste Jallier
1761 Une Salle de concert
Premier Prix Antoine-Joseph De Bourge
Second Prix Juste-François Boucher
1762 Une Foire couverte
Premier Prix Juste-François Peyre
Second Prix Pierre D’Orléans
Delaire notes that academicians were forbidden in 1762 to visit stu-
dents in the ateliers.
1763 Un Arc de triomphe
Premier Prix Charles-François D’Arnaudin
 Winners of the Grand Prix competitions 175
Second Prix Juste-François Boucher
1764 Un Collège dans une ville
Premier Prix Adrien Mouton
Second Prix Pierre D’Orléans
1765 Un Dôme d’une église cathédrale
Premier Prix Jean-François Heutier
Second Prix Paul-Antoine Bouche
Delaire notes that none of the 1765 competition first stage drawings
were worthy of completion; the competition was set again and 11 of
the 23 entries withdrew.
1766 Un Portail cathédrale
Premier Prix Jean-Arnold Raymond
Second Prix Pierre D’Orléans
1767 Une Douane
Premier Prix Pierre D’Orléans
Second Prix Jean-Philippe Lemoine
Winners of the competition from 1767 to 1778 were sent to Rome.
1768 Une Salle de Comédie
Premier Prix Jean-Philippe Lemoine
Second Prix Bernard Poyet
1769 Une Fête publique pour le marriage d’un prince
Premier Prix Jean-Jacob Guerne
Second Prix Claude-Thomas Lussault
1770 Un Arsenal de terre
Premier Prix Jean-Jacques Huvé
Second Prix Jean-Augustin Renard
Delaire notes that no award was issued in 1771 ( Un Hôtel-Dieu) due
to the poor quality of submissions.
1772 Un Hôtel-Dieu
Premier Prix Claude-Thomas Lussault (1771 award)
Jean-Auguste Marquis
Second Prix Jean-Augustin Renard
1773 Un Pavillon sur une grande piece d’eau pour un souverain
Premier Prix Jean-Augustin Renard
Second Prix Mathurin Crucy
From 1774, academicians were permitted to appoint their own com-
mittees for the assessment of prizes. At the same time the academi-
cians decided to publish the Grand Prix designs. Where known, the
superscript numbers refer to the document(s) in which a design was
published as follows:
Collection des Prix que l’Académie d’Architecture proposait et cour-
onnait tous les ans: Tome premier, Paris . Grands Prix d’Archi-
tecture: Projects couronnés par l’Académie des Beaux-Arts de France:
Publiés par D. Avanzo et Comp, Liége, 1842 . Projects d’Architecture
176 Winners of the Grand Prix competitions
et autres productions de cet art qui ont mérités les Grand Prix, Paris,
1806.
1774 Des Baines publics d’eaux minerales
Premier Prix 1,2 Mathurin Crucy
Second Prix 1 Alexis-François Bonnet
1775 Des Ecoles de médicine
Premier Prix 1,2 Paul-Guillaume Lemoine
Second Prix Louis-Etienne De Seine
1776 Une Château pour un grand seigneur
Premier Prix Jean-Louis Desprez
Second Prix Charles-Joachim Bénard
1777 Une Château d’eau
Premier Prix Louis-Eteinne De Seine
Second Prix Jacques-Pierre Gisors
Delaire notes that the 1778 competition entries were not published
( Des Prisons publiques); awards were issued the following year.
Delaire continues to claim that Gisors’ entry was started prior to the
programme being published.
1779 Un Muséum des Sciences, des arts libéraux et d’histoire naturelle
Premier Prix Jacques-François DeLannoy 1
Jacques-Pierre Gisors 1,2 (1778)
Second Prix Jacques Barbier
Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand 1 (1778)
Two prizes were issued in lieu of none being awarded in 1778.
1780 Un Collège sur un terrain avant la forme d’un triangle
Premier Prix Louis-Alexandre Trouard 1,2
Second Prix Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand 1
1781 Une Cathédrale pour une capitale comme Paris
Premier Prix Louis Combes 1,2
Second Prix Jean-Baptist-Philibert Moitte 1
1782 Un Palais de justice pour une ville capitale
Premier Prix Bernard 1,2
Second Prix ? Cathala 1
1783 Une Ménagerie d’un souverain
Premier Prix Antoine-Laurent-Thomas Vaudoyer 1,2
Second Prix Charles Percier 1
1784 Un Lazaret
Premier Prix Auguste Hebert 1,2
Second Prix Jean-Charles-Alexandre Moreau 1
1785 Une Chapelle sépulcrale
Premier Prix Jean-Charles-Alexandre Moreau 1,2
Second Prix Pierre-François-Leonard Fontaine 1
1786 Un Edifice á rassembler les Académies
Premier Prix Charles Percier 1
Second Prix Louis-Robert-Edmonde Gout 1
 Winners of the Grand Prix competitions 177
No prize was awarded for the 1787 competition ( Un Hôtel de ville
pour une capitale); Delaire notes that the rules were not properly
adhered to (Delaire, Les Architectes élèves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts,
p. 136).
1788 Le Trésor royal d’un grand royaume
Premier Prix Jacques-Charles Bonnard 1,2
Jean-Jacques Tardieu 1,2 (1787)
Second Prix Jean-Baptiste-Philippe-Aaron Romain
Louis-Robert-Edmonde Gout (1787)
Two prizes were issued in lieu of none being awarded in 1787.
1789 Un Edifice pour la Faculté de médicine
Premier Prix Jean-Baptiste-Louis Faive 1,2
Second Prix François-Tranquille Gaucher &
? Gerbert
Delaire notes no award was issued in 1790 as the competition was
abandoned by the students who protested against some judging
procedures.
1791 La Galerie republique d’un palais
Premier Prix Claude-Mathieu Lagardette 2,3
Second Prix Pierre-Charles-Joseph Normand 2
1792 Un Marché principal pour une très grande ville
Premier Prix Claude-Mathieu Lagardette 2,3
Second Prix Pierre-Charles-Joseph Normand 2
1793 Une Caserne de cavalerie
Deuxiéme Prix Jean-Constantin Protain
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Index
Académie (Royale) d’Architecture:
architectural commissions 118–120;
accommodation 3, 35, 37–44, 71, 79,
143–145; administration and
organisation 3, 50, 64, 70, 64–65, 72,
142; and Colbert 32–37, 50, 60;
curriculum of the school 36, 50–51,
60–62, 70–76, 140; Directeurs 1, 3,
50–51, 62, 65n6, 70, 112, 139 (see also
Blondel, Jacques-François; Blondel,
Nicolas-François; Leroy, Julien-David;
La Hire, Gabriel-Philippe de); functions
and activities 1–3, 35–36, 51, 52, 60–62,
70, 83, 89, 137, 144, 163, 165; good
taste 4, 52–54, 57–60, 62, 70, 72, 82,
91–2, 97; its ideology 2, 37, 51–60, 62,
84, 88–92; its inauguration 1, 27, 35, 36,
46, 50–51, 70, 106; its influence on
architectural style 106–112; Membres 1,
50–51, 54, 55–56, 60–65, 69n72, 70–71,
78, 83, 100, 105–6, 112–118, 152, App.2;
Querelle des Anciens et Modernes
92–97; Procès-Verbaux de l’ Académie
Royale d’ Architecture 51–54, 52, 55,
60–1, 64, 72, 77, 83, 89, 92, 102, 114,
119; royal control 2, 35–37, 63; the
school after its suppression of the
Académie 137–143; the significance
of its title 1, 35, 37; the social status
of the Architect 44–46, 52, 65, 100–106,
145–148, 161; students 1, 2, 3, 37, 51,
58, 63, 70–74, 76–79, 82, 83–84, 100,
114; its suppression 128–132.
Académie (Royale) de Peinture et de
Sculpture 1–3, 5, 35–7, 39–40, 47n10,
48n32, 68n62, 69n72, 70, 78, 133n4,
133n5, 133nn6, 134n25, 138, 165–6;
abolition 131; exhibitions 126;
hostilities at 127–32; Jacques-Louis
David’s attendance 124–25; see also
École Spéciale de la Peinture et de la
Sculpture, École des Beaux-Arts
Académie de Danse 35
Académie de France à Rome 35, 43, 51,
76, 77–8, 125–6, 129, 131, 139, 142,
149n31, 166
Académie de Musique 35, 165, 166
Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture 1, 2,
5, 35, 36, 39, 40, 47n10, 70, 78, 166; see
also École des Beaux-Arts
Académie de St. Luc 47n10
Académie des Beaux-Arts 3, 145, 147, 152,
154, 157–9 ; see also École des Beaux-
Arts
Académie des Inscriptions et Médailles (also
known as Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres) 35
Académie des Sciences 35, 63, 64, 166
Académie Française 1, 35, 37, 69n72, 130,
148n6, 166
Accademia del Disegno 25
Accademia Platonica 24
Accademia Pontaniana 24
Accademia Romana (Accademia Pomoni-
ana) 24
Aetolian League 16
Alberti, Leon Battista 31n66
Alexander the Great 13, 16, 27n13, 28n28
Anaximander (pre-Socratic philosopher) 14
Anaximenes of Miletus 14
Angiviller, Charles-Claude Flahaut de la
Billaderie (also known as Comte
d’Angiviller) 127, 128–9, 134n17
Antoine, Jacques-Denis 110, 120n2
Arc de Triomphe de Saintes (Arc de Germa-
nicus) 114
Arc de Triomphe du Faubourg Saint
Antoine 102, 122n13

Arcesilaus 12, 28n22
Arch of Titus 113
Architecte du Roi 64–5, 105
Aristotle 10, 14, 16–17, 24, 27n13, 30n44,
30n45, 57
Aspirant 26, 51, 153, 155
Assemblée Nationale 2, 128, 134n15,
134n24
Ateliers 71–2, 83, 85n10, 141, 153,
154, 155
Audoul, Alfred 159
Barré, Jean-Vincent 110
Bernini, Gianlorenzo 48n27, 103
Blondel, Jacques-François 7n1, 66n7, 75,
85n17, 109, 111, 115, 117, 120n2; built
work 115–17, 116, 123n40; Cours
d’Architecture 74; and ideology 74–6;
on teaching 72–4, 75, 77–9, 83, 84, 156
Blondel, Nicolas-François 1, 35, 54, 62, 64,
65n6, 65n7, 67n18, 84, 84n3; built work
62, 94, 112–14, 113; Cours d’Architecture
6, 51, 54, 67n18, 94; dispute with Perrault
brothers 46, 63, 91–7; formation of the
Académie 1, 35, 50; ideology 51, 53–4,
58, 60, 102; and Jacques-François Blondel
4, 73; teaching 1–2, 36, 42, 50–1; 53–4,
70; on style 91–5, 97
Boffrand, Germain 107, 108, 120n2
Boullée, Etienne Louis 45, 73, 81, 102,
111–12, 148n2, 151n53
Bracciolini, Poggio 24
Bramante, Donato 55
Bruand, François 115
Bruand, Libéral 50, 61, 62, 100, 119, 121n2
Brunelleschi, Filippo 55
Bullant, Jean 44, 55
Bullet, Pierre 62, 107, 113, 114, 121n2
Camus, Abbé Charles-Étienne-Louis 74,
115, 121n2, 170n10
Carneades of Cyrene 13
Cathédrale Notre Dame, de l’Annonciation
de Nancy 107
Cathédrale Notre Dame, Paris 19
Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l’Annonciation
(Primatiale) 107
Chapelle de la Vierge 107
Château d’Anet 143
Château de Chantilly 117
Château de Choisy 122n21
Château de Compiègne 122n21
Château de Gaillon 143, 144
Château de la Malgrange 108
Index 187
Château de Marly 119
Château des Rohan 108
Château du Val 119
Château Neuf 107, 108
Chremonidean War 16
Cicero, Marcus Tullius 12, 23, 28n21,
28n24, 57
Cimon (Athenian statesman) 8, 27n5
Club Rèvolutionnaire des Arts 132
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 26, 33, 38–9, 48n26;
the Académie 35–7, 50, 60, 70, 76, 163;
the College des Quatre-Nations 48n26,
48n27; the eastern façade of the Louvre
103–4; the Gobelins 34; the guilds 35,
37; mercantilism 33–5, 59–60, 90
Collége Royal de Saint Louis 115
Collègedes Quatre-Nations (also known
as Palais des Beaux-Arts) 4, 37–9, 38,
39, 48n27, 124, 133n3, 138, 142–3; see
also Mazarin, Jules
Collegia 20; see also Guilds
Comité de l’Instruction Publique 130,
131–2, 135n48, 139, 146
Comité des Travaux Publics 146
Commune des Arts 130, 131, 138
Competitions: Diplôme d’Architecture 70,
157, 159–60; Grand Prix (also known as
Prix de Rome) 6, 63, 76–84, 85n29, 102,
115, 124–5, 129, 131, 137, 138, 139,
141–2, 145, 148n2, 152, 157, 158–60,
161n9, 166, App.3; Prix d’Emulation
77, 86n49, 139, 142, 150n33, 157
Conseil des Bâtiments Civils 143
Convention Nationale (also known as
Assemblée Constitutive Nationale) 2, 126,
128–32, 134n15, 135n47, 137–9, 141,
146–7, 163, 165; see also Institut de France
Courtonne, Jean 66n7, 115, 170n10
Couvent des Petits-Augustins (also known
as Musée des Monuments Français) 143
D’Orbay, François 39, 51, 121n2
D’Orbay, Nicolas 121n2
Da Carpi, Alberto Pio 24
Da Sangallo, Giuliano 55
Da Vinci, Leonardo 25
David, Jacques-Louis 2, 48n28, 124, 127,
133n1; distain towards the academies
126–7, 139; and Leroy 138; paintings
124–5, 126–7; suppression of the
academies 128–32, 136n57;
temperament 125, 133n8; training and
career 124, 125, 133n3, 133n4, 134n12,
132n17, 141
188 Index
De Cotte, Robert 77, 107, 114
De Gaulle, Charles 160
De Gondrin, Louis de Pardaillan (First
Duke of Antin) 63, 71
De l’Orme, Philibert 44, 55, 57, 67n31, 143
De Quincy, Quatremère 111, 112, 130,
135n38, 159
De Rouvroy, Louis (Duc de Saint-Simon) 32
De Wailly, Charles 73, 121n2, 148n2,
170n11
De’Medici, Cosimo 24–5, 31n67
De’Medici, Lorenzo 23
Debret, François 143, 144
Descartes, René 63, 89–91, 95–7
Desgodets, Antoine 58, 66n7, 70, 77, 91,
114–15
Desprez, Louis Jean 73, 102, 121
Du Cerceau, Jacques Androuet 44
Duban, Félix 143–4, 145, 150n37,
150n40, 159
Dufourny, Léon 102, 142
Dumont, Gabriel-Pierre-Martin 102,
121n2, 121n5, 147–8, 151n54
Dupérac, Étienne 44
Durand, Nicolas-Louis 85n30, 101, 102
École Centrale des Travaux Publics 146
École des Beaux-Arts 3, 6, 71, 79–80, 84,
84n7, 85n29, 86n49, 87n51, 137, 142–6,
150n34, 150n35, 150n36, 162n24, 163–5;
construction 159; its demise 160–1;
entry requirements 153, 155; ideology
152–4; organisation 152; teaching
155–156, 159; see also École
d’Architecture 162, 164–165; École des
Arts 7n1, 72–73, École Impériale et
Spéciale des Beaux-Arts 3, 143, 163;
École National d’Architecture 142;
École Nationale des Beaux-Arts 142;
École Nationale Supérieure d’Archi-
tecture 3, 161, 164–5; École Royale et
Spéciale des Beaux-Arts, 3, 143, 162;
École Spéciale d'Architecture 3, 141,
163; École Spéciale de la Peinture et de
la Sculpture 3, 142; École Spéciale de
Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture 3
École des Cadets-Gentilshommes 122n22
École des Ponts-et-Chaussées 146, 150n46
École Militaire 110, 122n21
École Polytechnique 3, 102, 121n5, 140–1,
147, 148n12
Élèves 71, 72, 78, 155, 170n3
Emperor Honorius 17
Emperor Justinian I 13
Epicrates of Ambracia 11
Félibien, André 50, 63, 66n10
Ficino, Marsilio 23, 24
Flaminius, Titus Quinctius 16
Fontaine, Pierre-François-Léonard 81–2,
81, 102, 121n2, 139
Fourcroy, Antoine François Comte de 146
Gabriel, Ange-Jacques 65n6, 100, 110, 111,
117, 121n2, 122n21, 122n22
Gabriel, François 153–7
Gallot, Jean-François 86n41, 115
Gittard, Daniel 50, 62, 121n2
Gobelin, Jean 34; the Gobelins 34–36,
46n5, 46n6
Gondoin, Jacques 73, 148n1, 148n4
Grand Theatre, St. Petersburg 117
Gros Pavillon, Fontainebleau 100, 122n21
Guilds 17–22, 25–6, 31n57, 31n59, 34–5,
36, 37, 46, 47n9
Henry IV (King of England) 47n9
Héré, Emmanuel 108
Hippocrates of Kos 14, 29n36
Homer 17
Hôtel de Chimay 145
Hôtel de Crillon 122n22
Hôtel de Soubise 108
Hôtel de Ville, Metz 116–17
Hôtel Dieu, Lyon 122n21
Hôtel Marigny 122n21
Hôtel Roquelaure 115
Hôtel Royale des Invalides 118, 119
Institut de France (formally known as
Palais de l’Institut de France) 3, 38, 137,
148n6
Isocrates 15–16, 30n43
Jossenay, Denis 66n7, 115
La Hire, Gabriel-Philippe de 62, 114,
66n7, 114
La Hire, Philippe de 65n7, 114, 121n2
Labrouste, Henri 159
Laugier, Marc-Antoine 100–2, 111, 121n2,
121n10
Le Blanc, Jean-Bernard (Abbé Le Blanc) 110
Le Brun, Charles 1, 34–5, 47n10, 100, 103,
104, 122n14
Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret)
154, 159
Le Mercier, Jacques 44

Le Muet, Pierre 44
Le Pautre, Antoine 50, 61, 118
Le Vau, François 50
Le Vau, Louis 39, 44, 108, 121n2; College
des Quatre-Nations 4, 38–9, 48n27,
48n27, eastern façade to the Louvre
100, 103–4
Leconte, André 153
Ledoux, Claude Nicolas 73, 112, 121n2
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 63, 89
Lemercier, Jacques 48n31, 107
Lequeu, Jean-Jacques 102, 121n2
Leroux, Jean-Baptiste 66n7, 115, 121n2
Leroy, Julien-David 3, 6, 70, 91, 117,
121n2, 123n42, 138–42, 146, 148n7,
149n16, 151n48
Leto, Pomponio 24
Loriot, Louis-Adam 66n7, 115
Louis XIV (King of France) 1, 26–7,
31n70, 32–34, 40, 50, 62, 64, 69n69,
103, 108, 112, 113, 114, 118, 119,
122n14
Louis XV (King of France) 26, 31n70,
109, 110
Louis XVI (King of France) 31n70, 127
Louis XVIII (King of France) 138, 143
Louvre 35, 39, 40–3, 41, 43, 72, 75, 77,
84, 100, 102–4, 104, 110, 121n13,
122n14, 124–5, 127, 133n8, 134n13,
138, 139, 142, 163, 170n3
Machy, Pierre-Antoine 141
Madame de Montespan 118–19
Malraux, André 3, 160, 164–5
Mansart, François 44
Mansart, Jules-Hardouin 100, 107–8, 108,
110, 118–20, 119, 121n2, 121n4, 145,
170n2, 170n8
Marat, Jean-Paul 124, 130
Marigny, Marquis de (Abel-François
Poisson de Vandières), 78, 86n42, 110,
111, 170n11
Martin, Pierre 153
Mauduit, Antoine-Francois 66n7, 85n18,
117, 141
Mazarin, Jules (Cardinal Mazarin) 32,
33, 37, 47n10, 47n21, 47n22, 48n25;
College des Quatre-Nations 4, 37–40,
47, 48n23, 48n24, 48n26, 48n27, 138
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti
Simoni 55
Mignard, Pierre 51, 61, 67n27, 121n2
Mique, Richard 65n6, 110,
122n24
Index 189
Monge, Gaspard 146, 163
Napoléon, Bonaparte 33, 122n22, 138,
142, 148n3, 148n5, 150n41
Newton, Isaac 63, 89
Nova Academia 24
Observatoire Royal, Paris 104, 121n13
Palais Brion (part of Palais Royal) 40,
48n30
Palais Cardinal (also known as Palais
Royale) 37
Palais de Versailles 34; Petit Trianon 100,
122n21
Palais des Beaux-Arts (also known as
Grand Palais des Études, Grand Musée
des Études), 142–4, 144, 159
Palais Mazarin 38, 47n22
Palladio, Andrea 54, 55, 58, 61, 75, 94, 141
Pantheon, Rome (also known as Sainte
Geneviève) 13, 78, 100
Parthenon, Athens 13, 29n30
Patte, Pierre 72, 73, 75, 102, 106, 109,
121n2
Percier, Charles 85n30, 86n48, 102, 121, 139
Perrault, Charles 63, 95, 97
Perrault, Claude 5, 46, 56–7, 56, 52, 62,
63, 75, 92–3, 95, 96, 97, 98n18, 100,
102–4, 121n2, 121n3, 121n13, 170n1
Perret, Auguste 145
Peruzzi, Baldassare, 55
Petit Conseil 103–4
Philip the Fair 47n9
Pierre, Jean-Baptiste Marie 127
Pinard, Jean 80
Place d’Armes, Metz 116–17, 116
Place de la Bourse, Bordeaux 122n21
Place des Victoires, Paris 119
Place Louis XV (also known as Place de la
Concorde), Paris 110, 122n21, 122n22
Place Louis-le-Grand (Vendôme) 119
Plato 8–9; the Academy 8, 11–12, 10,
12–13, 24, 27n7; philosophy 9–10, 17;
teaching 11; writings 10–11, 15
Pliny the Elder 12, 57
Plutarch (also known as Lucius Mestrius
Plutarchus) 15, 27n5, 29n32
Porte Saint-Denis, Paris 112
Porte Saint-Martin, Paris 113
Potain, Nicolas-Henri 110, 121n2, 122n23,
122n24
Ptolemy, Claudius 16
Pythagoras of Samos 14, 29n34
190 Index
Renou, Antoine 129
Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis de
(Cardinal Richelieu) 1, 35, 37, 40,
47n21, 48n31
Rinuccini, Alamanno 24
Rondelet, Jean Baptiste 73
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 109
Sangallo, Giuliano de 55
Scamozzi, Vincenzo 54, 57, 67n30, 75,
93, 141
Sedaine, Michel 125, 133n10
Serlio, Sebastiano 55
Société Populaire et Républicaine des
Arts 139
Socrates 9, 28n24, 124
Soufflot, Jacques-Germain 46, 76, 100,
102, 110–11, 121n2, 122n13, 122n21
Speusippus 10, 11, 12, 28n22, 28n24
Spinoza, Baruch 89
Suvée, Joseph-Benoît 131
Thales 14
Théâtre-Française, )also known as
Comédie-Française) 40
Theophrastus 16
Unité Pédagogiques d'Architecture 160–1,
App.1
University 17–22; Paris 160
Vasari, Giorgio 25, 31n67
Vaudoyer, Antoine Laurent Thomas 139,
142, 157
Veronese, Guarino 23
Vien, Joseph-Marie 124–5, 133n5,
133n6
Vignola, Barozzi 55, 75, 93, 141
Villa Medici 142
Vitruvius, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
49n38, 53–8, 75, 92–4, 99n28, 101,
121n10, 141
Voltaire, François-Marie Aroutet 109,
133n6
Xenophanes of Colophon 14, 28n24