history of modern architecture
section 1a 17th & 18th century france


Claude Perrault, treatise on classical orders of architecture, 1683
Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans
Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736 - 1806)
Arc-et-Senans, Doubs, Eastern France (1775-79)
"The Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans, near Besancon, was built by Claude Nicolas Ledoux. Its construction, begun in 1775 during the reign of Louis XVI, was the first major achievement of industrial architecture, reflecting the ideal of progress of the Enlightenment. The vast, semicircular complex was designed to permit a rational and hierarchical organization of work and was to have been followed by the building of an ideal city, a project that was never realized." UNESCO
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Musee du Louvre, East Front (The Colonnade)
Claude Perrault (1613 - 1688)
Paris, France (1682)
"Claude Perrault's Colonnade is the easternmost facade of the Palais du Louvre in Paris. It has been celebrated as the foremost materpiece of French Architectural Classicism since its construction, mostly between 1667 and 1670. Cast in a restrained classicizing baroque manner, it interprets rules laid down by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, whose works Perrault had translated into French. Archetict Louis Le Vau and artist Charles Le Brun also contributed to the realization of Perrault's work." wikipedia
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Peter Zumthor is a contemporary architect whose pure, simple geometries have been compared to those of Ledoux.







