Etienne louis boullee biography of michael w

Throughout the 20th century, numerous architects whose careers were cut short by the French Revolution have been re-entered one by one into history, their works studied and their reputations restored. Without the notoriety of his younger colleague Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, whose ostentatious tollgates surrounding the Parisian tax-wall were the object of Revolutionary fury, his death in passed almost unnoticed.

And yet, since the s his reputation as one of the major and most original figures of the late 18th century has been firmly established as the elder statesman of the radical Enlightenment in architecture, if not of the Modern Movement itself.

'Étienne-Louis Boullée, (born February 12, , Paris, France—died February 6, , Paris), French visionary architect, theorist, and teacher.

During his lifetime, his contemporaries agreed, he was, unlike many of his peers, reluctant to promote his career or fame. Indeed, he was a reluctant architect, having been forced to abandon his love of painting by a practical father, and building few domestic commissions before settling for a career in academic administration and teaching.

Clockwise from bottom left: project for the chapel of the dead; Tombeau des Spartiates; cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton. Like with Ledoux, this vision emerged gradually, and was the direct outcome of an active practice. He shunned frivolous ornamentation, favouring the orders of Greek and Roman precedent, combining classic elements at a monumental scale for heightened dramatic effect.

Forgotten for most of the 19th century, he was rediscovered by the art historian Emil Kaufmann in the late s. It was left to Helen Rosenau, another exile, to publish the first transcription and translation of his Architecture. Essay on Art in Project for a metropolitan cathedral in the form of a Greek cross with a domed centre. But no amount of careful philology will ever fully explain his extraordinary dream world nor deny his evocative influence over generations of lateth-century architects.

Since , The Architectural Review has scoured the globe for architecture that challenges and inspires. Buildings old and new are chosen as prisms through which arguments and broader narratives are constructed. In their fearless storytelling, independent critical voices explore the forces that shape the homes, cities and places we inhabit. You are here: Reputations.