The Architecture of the French Enlightenment - Softcover

Braham, Allan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520067398 ISBN 13: 9780520067394

Publisher: University of California Press, 1989

Synopsis

Allan Braham's comprehensive treatment of this brilliant and complex period introduces the reader to the major buildings, architects, and architectural patrons of the day. At the same time, it explores the broader determinants of architectural production: the rapid economic expansion of Paris and the main provincial centers and the increasing demand for improved public amenities—theaters, schools, markets, and hospitals. This generously illustrated book provides a vivid commentary on society and manners in pre-Revolutionary France.

About this title

About the Author:

Allan Braham is Keeper and Deputy of the National Gallery, London.

Review:

"Allan Braham's book The Architecture of the French Enlightenment makes no acknowledgement of the current architectural interest in Neoclassicism and, in fact, Braham wants us to see this architecture as the product of a singular society. Nonetheless, whether he intended it or not, this straightforward, well- illustrated book will make life a lot easier for architects who have been pursuing French Neoclassicism . . . . [Braham] tells us a lot about the individual buildings." -- Elizabeth G. Grossman, Progressive Architecture

"Braham weaves architecture so skillfully into history that the general reader familiar with the great buildings of France will find much to admire in its illustrated pages." -- John Barkham Reviews

"[An] important and pioneering account of French architecture of the second half of the eighteenth century." -- Francis Haskell, New York Review of Books

"[There has been a] need for a book on the architecture of the period in which . . . [Ledoux and Boulle] would be brought into clearer relation with their contemporaries. . . . This is exactly what Allan Braham has done." -- Anthony Blunt, Times Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0520067398
• ISBN 13: 9780520067394
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288