Eugène Viollet-le-Duc: Visions of an Architect

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was a passionate, iconoclastic man who became one of the most influential architects of the nineteenth century. Generations have read his writings, followed his teachings and admired his buildings. Paris’s Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine has recently opened a new show that retraces the work of this inimitable and unparalleled figure.

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Auguste Perret at the Palais d’Iéna

Auguste Perret was a founding father of modern architecture in Europe. An exhibition at the Palais d’Iéna, one of Perret’s own buildings, presents eight of his masterpieces in a highly didactic and well-presented exhibition.

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Auguste Perret’s Franciscan Chapel in Arcueil

With this year’s Heritage Days fast upon us, here is a post on one of the buildings I visited during last year’s event: the Franciscan chapel in Arcueil designed by Auguste Perret.

Hidden away and, in all appearance, a humble structure, this is a building that reveals itself on closer examination to be a marvel of simplicity and elegant logic, a true architectural lesson.

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Marcel Breuer at the Cité de l’Architecture

Tomorrow opens a new exhibition on the great twentieth-century architect, Marcel Breuer, at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris.

After presenting Henri Labrouste, the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine skips forward a century and presents another great architect who may not be among the best known to the general public, but who is revered within the profession.

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Henri Labrouste

Henri Labrouste is not among nineteenth century architects best known by the general public. He is, however, one of architects’ favorite architects of the period. Last week an exhibition dedicated to Labrouste opened at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine. An opportunity, hopefully, to bring Labrouste to his rightful prominence.

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