The Template of Photography in Nineteenth-century Architectural Representation

Abstract

For the only perspectival view of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève he drew for publication in a professional magazine, Henri Labrouste traced a photograph commissioned for that purpose. Taken in 1852 by the Bisson Frères, the image is very likely the first commissioned photograph of a contemporary building as well as the firm’s first architectural photograph. This use of photography as a template in the architectural representation of a contemporary building predates by almost twenty years what later became common practice. Labrouste’s deployment of a mechanical interface in drawing mirrors his use of exposed iron in the building itself and carries with it many of the same implications regarding the search for a modern, realistic, and industrialized form of expression. In The Template of Photography in Nineteenth-century Architectural Representation, Neil Levine marshals histories of the book and of photography to help explain the context in which Labrouste developed this idea.