Expose Ignorance and Revive the "Bon Goût": Foreign Architects at Jacques-François Blondel's École des Arts

Abstract

This article focuses on four foreign architects who attended Blondel's school during the 1740s and 1750s: the Dutch architect Pieter de Swart, Sir William Chambers, and German architects Simon Louis du Ry and Karl Philipp Christian von Gontard. Through analysis of relatively unknown documentary evidence, the author reconstructs the actual content of Blondel's teachings. These sources underline Blondel's importance as a promoter of the study of architecture at all levels of society, a principal teacher of both theory and design, a master of spatial organization, a critic of contemporary architectural taste (Rococo and early neoclassicism), and an enthusiastic advocate of the interests of the architect as a professional in control of the entire building process. On the whole Blondel's views were heartily embraced by his foreign students. These facts suggest that, from an international perspective, Blondel should be regarded as a major propagator of the renewal and revival of the language of classicism and not merely as a traditionalist or as the last great theoretician of the Renaissance. Designs completed by his foreign students in their subsequent careers illustrate Blondel's efficacy in changing attitudes to classical architecture and theory, particularly outside France. After their schooling at Blondel's École des Arts, Chambers, de Swart, du Ry, and Gontard all rose to important positions in their homelands and, thanks to their acquired skills, used their education to redirect the practice of architecture. Moreover, their approaches to architectural education, theory, design, history, and contemporary taste clearly distinguished them as disciples of Blondel. To a large extent, they personified Blondel's new professionalism and were responsible for spreading his doctrine and renewed classicism throughout Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century and, at least in part, for carrying it well into the nineteenth century.