DOI article:
Peyceré, David: French Architecture between Rationalism and Regionalism, 1895-1918
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51728#0181
French Architecture between Rationalism and Regionalism, 1895-1918*
David PEYCERE
Were there any national trends in the Turn-
of-the-Century architecture? There was no quest
for a national architecture then; regarding the
idea of nation as it may hâve been expressed by
architects, artists or critics, it mainly showed up
its negative, nationalistic, even chauvinistic
forms. These forms, I think, are worth of
presenting: through them, we cari see that it did
exist - sometimes - aconcernfora French spirit
that would, however, be more characteristic of
the period between the two World Wars.
At the end of the 19th Century, architects in
ail Europe were looking for the ways leading out
of the Eclecticism, comprehended by many
artists as a failure for architecture. Among the
different issues explored, in many countries the
purpose of regenerating architecture was openly
linked with the undergoing régénération of the
nation, a phenomenon at work since the 1830s,
most particularly in the Eastern part of Europe
and also, in Western Europe, in Scotland and in
some provinces such as Catalonia.
France - as, for that matter, England - did not
play in this adventure any significant part and
therefore the nationalistic trends in France hâve
not been studied for themselves till now. There
was no national historicism at work in France
around 1900 as there was, for example, in Prague
Asanace district building décoration. The reason
is clear enough: with their comfortable basis of
centuries (indeed, quite a millennium) of national
independence and with their power settled far
over the océans, France and England did not need
anymore to define themselves as nations. In
architecture, the Orders „à la française“ as
French architect and theoretician Philibert de
l’Orme drew and published them as early as
1567, four centuries ago - although they actually
scarcely came into use - indicate how old the
concern of defining the national art (national
against Italian, at that time) was in France. It was
achieved in the mid-17th Century, when Louis
XIV founded the Royal Academy of Architecture
and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and
definitely completed one Century later, when the
teacher at the Académie, Jacques-Francois
Blondel, brought out his albums simply called
Architecture française (1752-1756), which
remained a model for générations. His pupil,
Gombert, explained in 1762 that: „Modern
architecture is an architecture of which the order
refers to the proportions of Antiquity; which
shares an elegance of forms and of interior
convenience: it may be described as French
architecture. “1
Thus, an early nation, a grown-up architecture
for which this was just one possible définition but
which also had a few other ones, to which we are
turning back. And though, France was not so self-
assured as England, at the top of its colonial and
European power. France had just recently been
beaten on the battle-field by Germany, to whom
it had to recognize an obvious military superiority;
the defeat was both expensive and humiliating:
175
David PEYCERE
Were there any national trends in the Turn-
of-the-Century architecture? There was no quest
for a national architecture then; regarding the
idea of nation as it may hâve been expressed by
architects, artists or critics, it mainly showed up
its negative, nationalistic, even chauvinistic
forms. These forms, I think, are worth of
presenting: through them, we cari see that it did
exist - sometimes - aconcernfora French spirit
that would, however, be more characteristic of
the period between the two World Wars.
At the end of the 19th Century, architects in
ail Europe were looking for the ways leading out
of the Eclecticism, comprehended by many
artists as a failure for architecture. Among the
different issues explored, in many countries the
purpose of regenerating architecture was openly
linked with the undergoing régénération of the
nation, a phenomenon at work since the 1830s,
most particularly in the Eastern part of Europe
and also, in Western Europe, in Scotland and in
some provinces such as Catalonia.
France - as, for that matter, England - did not
play in this adventure any significant part and
therefore the nationalistic trends in France hâve
not been studied for themselves till now. There
was no national historicism at work in France
around 1900 as there was, for example, in Prague
Asanace district building décoration. The reason
is clear enough: with their comfortable basis of
centuries (indeed, quite a millennium) of national
independence and with their power settled far
over the océans, France and England did not need
anymore to define themselves as nations. In
architecture, the Orders „à la française“ as
French architect and theoretician Philibert de
l’Orme drew and published them as early as
1567, four centuries ago - although they actually
scarcely came into use - indicate how old the
concern of defining the national art (national
against Italian, at that time) was in France. It was
achieved in the mid-17th Century, when Louis
XIV founded the Royal Academy of Architecture
and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and
definitely completed one Century later, when the
teacher at the Académie, Jacques-Francois
Blondel, brought out his albums simply called
Architecture française (1752-1756), which
remained a model for générations. His pupil,
Gombert, explained in 1762 that: „Modern
architecture is an architecture of which the order
refers to the proportions of Antiquity; which
shares an elegance of forms and of interior
convenience: it may be described as French
architecture. “1
Thus, an early nation, a grown-up architecture
for which this was just one possible définition but
which also had a few other ones, to which we are
turning back. And though, France was not so self-
assured as England, at the top of its colonial and
European power. France had just recently been
beaten on the battle-field by Germany, to whom
it had to recognize an obvious military superiority;
the defeat was both expensive and humiliating:
175