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Eastern Facade of the Louvre - Coggle Diagram
Eastern Facade of the Louvre
Allais
Authorship
Perrault
Equally unorthodox theory of architecture to the design of the facade
'mere' Physician with a theory
Le Vau
nominated by poet Nicolas Boileau
Architect without a theory
Robert W. Berger
Searching for the true authorship of the facade
Design Influences
Colbert
Distaste for grandiloquence and the extensive demolition required by Italian designs
Created the committee to search for a French solution for the facade
Political
Italy
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Went to Paris for political and architectural expediency
When exiting he left behind 3 unbuilt design schemas
Fall into disfavour
Political Tension
French Monarchy
Demolition required by Italian designs seen as an affront to French Sovereign Power
The construction of the colonnade stands in the historical record as the marker of the King's departure from Paris
petit conseil
The council responsible for the design of the East Facade
Highly political process
Moment of conceptual clarity, as the design was able to be finalised in three months
Charles Le Brun
Brought in Claude Perrault for the translation of Vitruvius's text
Had modern architectural theories about columns and parrallels
Architecture to be progressive
not to use columns, but to place and compose them
Brother to Claude Perrault, alleged to have started the rumours of authorship of the facade belonging to Perrault
Claude Perrault
Translator of Vitruvius's text
Physician adept at Latin and Greek
Challenging new translations of Vitruvius's texts, including previously contradictory statements, including a new translation for symmetry to prevent confusion between the old latin meaning
Vocal defender of the facade's design
Theories to have designed the facade due to the alignment with his theories and repeated use as an example, however more likely to have been inspired by the facade due to not releasing his book till ten years after the facade was built
Academics
Vitruvius
mysterious
modern artistic creation should stem from the imitation of the ancient precedents
Perrault's translation created new concepts around symmetry
Architectural debates
Did the ancients stand at the beginning or at the end of creation?
Parallel between the ancients and the moderns but rather an endless series of parallels
Freart vs. Charles
The merit of architecture therefore is not to use columns, but to place them with judgment and to compose beautiful buildings with them.
The art of architecture does not consist in words
Societal Opinions
Controversial
Diverted from the 'perfect' proportions of columns
Coupled Columns
One perfect column
"More architectural beauty than in any of the buildings of the ancients."
Politically and Scholarly tense construction
made the building a defining argument for scholarly arguments over authorship, art and architecture
the 'pride' of the French monarchy would be affected by the success of the design
Ostensible modernity
"Surprised even the eyes that had been most accustomed to beautiful things"
Disruption of expected symmetry w/ coupled columns
1700
had become the analogy 'par excellence' for architectural invention itself
Perrault
Equally unorthodox theory of architecture to the design of the facade
Ostensible Modernity
Ordonnance des cinq especes de colonnes selon la méthode
Preceded by the Louvre colonnade by a decade
Louvre Colonnade's ubiquitous presence
"Curiosity of a classical savant", Antoine Picon
'mere' Physician
desire for creative agency, depriving architecture of the ability to create new meanings
"positive" beauty and "customary" beauty
positive beauty is a timeless value, natural instincts
customary beauty changes over time with 'fashion'
Not contradictory, were used to resolve conflicts, therefore he saw the two notions of beauty as symmetrical
Avoid equating doubling w/ bifurcation, division w/ discord, and distinction w/ contradiction. Doubling, division and distinction are just as easily equated w/ symmetry
Analysed Vitruvian's discordant legacy in order to derive a graph that encompasses both the authority of the ancients and the ambition of the moderns
used mathematics to architectural theory
Design
Never a static object, repeatedly deployed as a backdrop
Coupled Columns
Space between columns instead of the details of the column
Every other column is displaced
"It is not the fact of its object hood (the doubled order as a symbol for architecture) but rather the process of constructing a system (the doubling of orders as generative of architecture that becomes an allegory for architectural creation)"
System of differences
the entire colonnade stands apart from the wall