Writer: Basile Baudez

Louis Le Vau

Louis Le Vau

Basile Baudez, Alexandre Cojannot and Alexandre Gady

Built in the 16th century on the banks of the river Seine, west of Paris, the castle of Meudon stands amidst the great French Renaissance monuments that were ultimately destroyed. When it was bought by Abel Servien in 1654, the old castle – built under François I in brick and stone… Read More

A souvenir and survey

A souvenir and survey

Basile Baudez

While working on the the Paris basilica of Sainte Genevieve, Jacques-Germain Soufflot sent his nephew – also trained as an architect – to Italy, in order to compile some research on domes. Soufflot was struggling at this time with the design of Sainte Genevieve’s main dome, inspired partly by St… Read More

Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Basile Baudez

In his designs for the Tilebein House, Schinkel makes considerable use of different colours corresponding to the nature of the materials depicted. To indicate iron he uses a darkish blue, for wood mostly yellow and, of course, when he wants to show cut masonry (he is building in brick), he… Read More

A.L.T. Vaudoyer

A.L.T. Vaudoyer

Basile Baudez

Antoine-Laurent-Thomas Vaudoyer’s Maison d’un Cosmopolite is part of a series of projects from the end of the 1780s and 1790s that try to think about the sphere as a built volume. The most famous is Boullée’s Newton Cenotaph but it is one among many. It is not only the sphere… Read More

Fontaine

Fontaine

Basile Baudez

Architectural historians have focused on the history of drawing as one of project design tools. By applying the methods of art history, one can trace colour as a key player in the long history of rivalry and exchange between European traditions in architectural drawing and practice. While Italian Renaissance drawings… Read More