TOA-2
ARCHITECTURAL THEORIST NO.8
6 B TOSA
BY: Ar.NIDHI JOSHI
LEDOUX :INTRODUCTION
BORN : 21 March 1736, Dormans near the river
Marne, France
DIED: 18 November 1806 , Paris ,France.
OCCUPATION: French Architect
He was one of the earliest exponents of French
Neoclassical architecture.
He used his knowledge of architectural theory to
design not only domestic architecture but also town
planning; as a consequence of his visionary plan for
the Ideal City of Chaux, (pronoun:shoe) he became
known as autopian.
Ledouxs greatest works were funded by the French
monarchy and came to be perceived as symbols of the
Ancien Rgimerather than Utopia.
This French architect was one of the most advanced
builders of the 18th Century .
He was one of the representatives of the architectural
FYI :
Ancien Regime. This term, which
is French for 'old order,' is often
used to describe the structures,
politics, and powers of French
society before the French
Revolution.
French society in the Ancien
Regime was divided into a
LEDOUX :BIOGRAPHY
1. Ledoux was the son of a modest merchant fromChampagne.( PR shm-pn)
2.
At an early age his mother, Francoise Domino,( PR f r -ah -n -s w -ah z) and godmother,
Francoise Piloy, encouraged him to develop his drawing skills.
3. Later the Abbey of Sassenage ( PR sas-a-nagh) funded his studies in Paris (17491753) age
13 to 17 at theCollge de Beauvais,( PR bu-way) where he followed a course in Classics.
4. On leaving the Collge, at age 17, he took employment as an engraver and made his living
by selling his battle scenes.
5.
Four years later he began to study architecture at the private cole des Arts collge
under the tutelage ofJacques-Franois Blondel, for whom he maintained a lifelong respect.
Ledoux pursued this attitude by exploring typology and the ways by which architecture
can convey meaning.
4. His investigations into the fundamental characteristics of building types paralleled the
classificatory efforts of scientists, such as Georges-Louis Leclerc Comte de Buffon (French
naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopedic author. 17071788).
5. His study of meaning engaged him with contemporary theories of perception, including
Edmund Burke's (Irish statesman born in Dublin, as well as an author, orator, political theorist and philosopher
who, after moving to London, served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for many years in the House of Commons
with the Whig Party. 17291797) writings on the sublime.
6.
7. Ledoux, like many other architects of his generation, was strongly influenced by the view
of antiquity of the Italian engraver Giovanni Battista Piranesi, which was essentially a
romantic one strongly tinged with elements of fantasy.
8.
It was in large measure from Piranesi that Ledoux's fondness for the dramatic derived, as seen in
the grandiose scale of many of his compositions and the forceful massiveness of his
simple architectural forms.
6. Ledoux planned to add to the castle two very curious outbuildings, which it is
doubtful that a patron would have considered. The Pheasantry and the shelter for the
rural Guards.
7. The Pheasantry, was designed on the plan of a Greek Cross (fig. 65).In the center,it
is crowned with a hemispheric cupola above a massive drum; the cross-arms are
prisms with bare walls and Venetian doors.
A friend from Champagne, Joseph Marin Masson de Courcelles, found him a position as the
architect for the Water and Forestry Department.
3.
Here between 1764 and 1770 he worked on the renovation and designs of
churches, bridges, wells, fountains and schools, inTonnerrois,SnonaisandBassigny.
4. Among the still extant works from this period are the bridge ofMarac, the Prgibert bridge in
Rolampont, the churches ofFouvent-le-Haut,Roche-et-Raucourt, Rolampont, thenave and
portal ofCruzy-le-Chtel, and thequireofSaint-Etienne d'Auxerre.
5. This experience sparked an interest in the economics, social organization, and architecture of
rural life and brought him into contact with physiocratic reformers.
Physiocracy (from the Greek for "Government of Nature") is an economic theory developed by a group of
18th century Enlightenment French economists who believed that the wealth of nations was derived solely
from the value of "land agriculture" or "land development" and that agricultural products should be highly
priced.
1. In 1766 Ledoux began designing the Htel d'Hallwyll (Le Marais, Paris), a building that,
according to the architectJacques Cellerier, received widespread praise and
attracted new patrons to the architect.
2. The owner Franz-Joseph d'Hallwyll (a Swiss colonel) and his wife, Marie-Thrse
Demidorge, were anxious to ensure work was executed economically. Therefore, Ledoux
had to reuse portions of the existing buildings, the former Htel de Bouligneux.
3. He had envisaged twocolonnadesin theDoric orderleading to anymphaeum decorated
with urns at the foot of the garden. However, the limitations of the site made this
impossible, so Ledoux resorted totrompe l'oeilpainting a colonnade on the blind wall of
the neighboring convent, thus extending the perspective.
In fine art, the
termTrompe
l'oeilrefers to the
technique of visual
illusion, whereby the
eye of the viewer is
deceived into thinking
that apaintingis
actually a threedimensional object,
rather than merely a
two-dimensional
representation of it.
Htel d'Hallwyll, Paris, 1766. Elevation of the facade on the rue Michel-le-
The upper portion of the hotel is markedly severed from the lower by the
strong cornice;
The receding center is clearly set off from the sides .
The whole seems to disintegrate into single compartments. The rooms are
arranged in the freest manner, their sizes and shapes depending exclusively on
their practical purposes. The c1assicising features, such as the columns flanking
the door, play a minor role in this building.
A new simplicity and clarity has been reached in this house and in Antoine's
Hotel de Fleury, 1768, which belong to the same stylistic phase.
Htel d'Hallwyll, Paris, 1766. Elevation of the facade on the rue Michel-le-
UZS.
1. The recognition given to the relatively modest Htel d'Hallwyll led to a more prestigious
commission, the Htel d'Uzs, forFranois Emmanuel de Crussolon therue Montmartre.
2. Here too, Ledoux preserved the structure of an earlier building.
3. Its plan was conventional, but contained only rectangular rooms. The house stood
on a narrow, deep plot. From the monumental entrance, praised by a contemporary as "a
wonderful composition," an alley led to the court and the house. The garden front extended
on one side a ' good deal farther than the court front.
LEDOUX : WORKS
Ledoux travelled to England in the years 1769-1771. There he became familiar
with thePalladian style of architecture.Palladio, an influential Renaissance
architect, was famous for his Italian villas (e.g., theVilla Rotunda).
From this point Ledoux worked often in the Palladian style, usually
employing a cubic design broken by a prostyle portico which gave an air
of importance even to a small structure.
7.
In this genre, he built, in 1770, ahouse for Marie Madeleine Guimardin the
Chausse d'Antin;
LEDOUX : WORKS
7. House for Marie Madeleine Guimardin the Chausse d'Antin (1770-73)
In 1770 Ledoux erected on the Chaussee d' Antin the "Temple of Terpsichore,"
as a gift of the Marechal deSoubise to the dancer Guimard
Its plan was distinguished by the free asymmetrical disposition of the
rooms.
The upper part of the slightly projecting porch towered high over the
building, like a smaller block superimposed on the main block.
Its most conspicuous feature was the spherical vaulting above the
entablature of the porch. Here the concept of contrasting volume with
mass was unmistakably expressed.
The elliptical theatre added to the house reminds one of the interior of the
Theatre of Besancon.
LEDOUX : WORKS
8. The house of Mlle Saint-Germain,
in theRue Saint-Lazare.
The staircase of the House of Mlle de
St. Germain, on the rue des
Porcherons, 1772 (fig. 71), inserted
between the salon and the porch,
disrupted the continuity of the
rooms.
On the exterior, the tendency
toward cubism had definitely
gained in strength.
The central portion of the front
receded markedly.
The high four-columned porch
projecting from the recess suggested a
smaller block intruding into the larger
one.
The walls were nude, the windows
unframed, the roof flat.
The house was far more modern than
its age.
LEDOUX : WORKS
10. House for the poetJean Franois de Saint-LambertinEaubonne
Its temple-like elevation is a dull performance of revivalism. No trace of Ledoux'
inventive mind can be found here except, perhaps, in the forceful design of the
open stairs.
Franche-Comt
Region of France
Ledoux in his Architecture illustrates two different projects for the Saltworks
The plan of the First Project shows all the houses coherently arranged around
a square court, with bordering alleys forming an outer square ( fig. 136).
Within the court, diagonal corridors serve as additional communications between the
central pavilions.
The pattern of the ground plan is strictly geometrical.
However, the main front is, in all its plainness, basically Baroque (fig. 138).
The two-storied center and pavilions project from the one-storied wings and are
distinguished by quoined angles.
The main entrance is marked by a portico of four large, ringed columns.
The geometrical layout is masked by a conventional front with a dominant
center and subordinated sides.
The practical disposition is as follows: The forefront contains the gateway, flanked by the
apartments of the director and the employees; the left corner pavilion houses the
circular chapel with the altar in its center, that to the right, the bakery.
The wings and the pavilion of the lateral fronts include the homes of the workers.
The rooms destined for the fabrication are located in the rear.
The center of the court is marked by a fountain.
Ledoux then made a Second Project, adding to the apartments and the workshops
a number of buildings for common use, and fundamentally changing the general
form
The entrance was to house the room of the guards, the prison, and the
bakery.
With all the traditional apparatus of columns, entablature, etc., the porch of the
Gateway has a character of its own.
Its block like mass emerges from lower wings, its back wall is shaped as a grotto in
unhewn rock.
Thus three non-homogeneous elements are combined: classical features,
pseudo-natural Romantic finishing, and the new cubism.
Side by- side with this modern tendency appears the Romantic trendArchitecture parlante in the urns seemingly pouring forth the precious fluid, to
tell us of the saline, the source of the city's wealth
Afraid that this might result in harshness or abruptness, he thinks of the simple device
which Boullee applied: trees or shrubs make the whole more pleasant.
Contrary to other Utopian cities, Chaux was conceived for an actual site.
Ledoux' aim was not for pictorial effect by blending architecture with nature. Neither was
he strictly utilitarian.
He wanted to combine his new formal ideal with the new ideal of the gardencity.
To sum up, the first project is still a complex derived from the basic concept of Baroque
building, which may be defined as follows: One part is to rule over the others and form
with them an indivisible whole.
The concept which underlies the second project was to become law in the future: Let the
elements be free and of equal right. The momentous years which advanced the
freedom of the individual brought freedom to the architectural elements as well.
The second project foreshadows the nineteenth century also in that it combines
traditional features with a new composition.
Though disguised by garments borrowed from the past, the architectural whole already
conforms to a new formal ideal.
In the second project of Chaux(ideal city ) he abandoned the principle of the differentiation
of the buildings according to their rank at the moment when the ideal of social hierarchy
vanished
Ledoux did not want civic art to be strictly utilitarian, he did not want the city to be
simply an agglomeration of houses; he wanted it to be the crown of all architectural
endeavors.
The buildings of practical purpose are to be dealt with first, since from them grew the
project of the Ideal City.
It is significant and symptomatic that an architect who was a member of the Royal
Academy and a favorite of the upper circles of society devoted himself to utilitarian
projects.
The changed attitude towards the architect's function was a revolution in itself.
It was to widen the field of the architect's activities to an extent never heard of before.
No longer did designs of an humble structure lower the architect's prestige. Now it
depends on him to ennoble his lowertask:
The utilitarian building received full attention, for life and all its activities in
the growing modern city were now to center around the worker.
UTOPIANISM-IDEAL CITY
Around the time of the royal saltworks, Ledoux formalized his innovative design
ideas for an urbanism and an architecture intended to improve society, of a
Cit idale (ideal city )charged with symbols and meanings.
The significance of this plan is twofold: the circle, a perfect figure, evokes
the harmony of the ideal city and theoretically encloses a place of
harmony for common work, but it recalls also contemporary theories of
organization and of official surveillance, particularly thePanopticonof
Jeremy Bentham
Along withtienne-Louis Boulleand his project for the Cenotaph of Newton, he is
considered a precursor to the utopians who would follow.
Boulle and Ledoux were a specific influence on subsequent Greek Revival
architects .
After 1775 he presentedTurgotwith the first sketches of the town of Chaux,
centered on the royal saltworks. The project, constantly perfected but never
executed, was engraved beginning in 1780.
The engravings, announced in 1784 and probably all designed by 1799, were
finally published in 1804, as part of the first edition of hisL'Architecture considere.
As a radical utopian of architecture, teaching at thecole des Beaux-Arts, he
created a singulararchitectonic order, a new column formed of alternating
cylindrical and cubic stones superimposed for their plastic effect.
In this period, taste was returning to the antique, to the distinction and the
examination, of the taste for the "rustic" style.
The concept of the ideal city goes back to thoughts of contemporary philosophers
and social reformers on the positive effects of the toiling work.
Accordingly, the plotting of these projects saw the foundation of workplaces and
residential buildings in one place. Here too, a garden was considered for self
management. The thought of the ideal town reaching to the provision of clothing.
The revolutionary architecture Ledoux was associated with a `monumental
geometric compositions, as the example of the plant in Saline of Arc-et-Senans
and the ideal city of Chaux revealed.
From the year 1780 plotted Ledoux 60 customs houses on the outskirts of Paris.
Although in his architecture Ledoux for the social and human needs of the users
were in the foreground, he fell into disfavor during the French Revolution, because
he had realized for the nobility and the royal family orders.
THE COOPERY
GUN
FOUNDRY
When asked to render plans for furnaces for a gun foundry, Ledoux drew them as
pyramids.
GUN
FOUNDRY
THEATER AT BESANON
THEATER AT BESANON
THEATER AT BESANON
However, if the neoclassical hints to the exterior was regarded as modern then the interior was a
revolution venues for public entertainment were rare in the French provinces,and where they did
exist it was traditional that only the nobles had seating, while those of less exulted rank had stood.
Ledoux, realizing this was not only inconvenient but elitist planned the theatre at Besanon on
more egalitarian lines with seating for all but in some quarters such a plan was seen as radical if
not revolutionary, the aristocracy had no wish to be seated alongside commoners.
Even so, it was decided that the social classes would still be segregated thus the theatre was the
first to have a ground floor amphi-theatre furnished with seats for the ordinary paying public.
Thus Ledoux achieved his ambition that the theatre could at the same time be a place of social
communion and shared entertainment while still maintaining a strict hierarchy of the classes.
The three semicircular tiers of seats (Ledoux abolished boxes) recede as they rise until they reach
the theatre's most monumental feature, the curving colonnade (Doric, without bases) supporting a
frieze. Never before had classical architecture been adapted so inventively and logically to the
requirements of a large modern theatre.
The seating was not the only innovation at the theatre. With the aid of the machinist Dart de
BoscoLedoux expanded the wings and back stage scenery apparatus, giving it greater depth than
was customary, and many other modern improvements.
Besanon was the first theatre to screen the musicians in an orchestra pit.
THEATER AT BESANON
THEATER AT BESANON
THEATER AT BESANON
One of his engravings, presenting the audience mirrored in a big eyeball, reveals
his propensity for the unusual (fig. 84).
THEATER AT BESANON
PUBLICATION
With the onset of the French Revolution, Ledoux was accused of being a royalist
sympathizer; his popularity suddenly waned, and he was forced into permanent
retirement.
TOLL HOUSES
TOLL HOUSES
While working on the tollhouses, which though commonly known as barrieres, were called
Propylaea of Paris by Ledoux, he planned also several inns (guinguettes) .
In 1787 the work done by him was considered too expensive and too extravagant.
Public opinion was so aroused-"Le mur murant Paris rend Paris murmurant" -that the
commission was taken from him two years later.
The barrieres were badly damaged in the Revolution (fig.1 28 ) .
A few years after their mutilation, the French National Convention decided that these relics of
the monarchy"des pierres ... entassees par la tyrannie"-be transformed into memorials to
honor the revolutionary victories and preserved as " monuments publics."
Most of the barrieres were finally destroyed in 1859.
3.
4.
The small Rotunda in the Parc de Monceau, also called B arriere de Chartres
which up to recent times was in a shameful state of degradation, and thus a
witness to how little Ledoux was thought of in his country.
De la Pompe de Chaillot
CONCLUSION
In his search for new spatial solutions, Ledoux became the true precursor of the
twentieth century.
In ever varying attempts he wanted to present buildings:as aggregates of
interpenetrating masses; or as crossings of volume and mass; or as piles of
stepped off units (motif of contrasted sizes) ; or as assemblages of incongruous
elements (motif of contrasted shapes).
The pattern of interpenetrating masses appears in many variations in Ledoux'
works, beginning in feeble essays and ending in forceful; outspoken solutions.
We may recall that this was one of the modern patterns which Blondel had
condemned so explicitly.
Today, glass construction permits the concept of volume versus mass to be
presented far better than was possible in former times. Let us not fail to observe
that this artistic ideal preceded the technical potential, just as eighteenth-century
cubism preceded the era of concrete.
Ledoux was the most prolific, productive, and original architect of late 18thcentury France. The powerful and brilliantly simplified geometry of his buildings
held little appeal for the following generations, however, and wholesale
demolitions and vandalism during the 19th century left only a handful of his
works still standing.
Among them is his saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, whichUNESCOdesignated a
World Heritage sitein 1982.