De sjunkna bågarna hos Ledoux, Boullée, Cellerier och Fontaine

Abstract

English Summary The Sunken Arches of Ledoux, Boullee, Cellerier and Fontaine. As this title indicates, a group of architectural works under the epoch of the French Revolution seem to be the bearers of a common idea; they are all entrance arches and all give the impression of standing partly submerged or buried in the ground. We have here a series of events never understood contemporaneously and their meaning never noticed even by authorities of later days. We come into contact with an episode in the history of architecture which was too complicated and unique to gain understanding—and which deserved a better fate than to fall into oblivion. Contemporaries never managed to attain comprehension of the working ideas of this movement. They were confronted with works of architecture which contained more than the senses were accustomed to register, and accordingly did not register; namely, a literary, poeticizing quantum of significance. In order to apprehend this, a special stage of instruction would have been...