Beaux-Arts style of architecture in US  .............  Architecture Around the World

L'Ecole Des Beaux Arts
(Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts)
14, Rue Bonaparte, Paris
Across the Seine River from Le Louvre


Click on photos for larger size

 

 

 

 

 

 

Banded Column

 

Keystone

 

 

Rosette


Architects - with a Buffalo connection - who studied at L'Ecole Des Beaux Arts:

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, American neoclassicism embraced the architecture of Rome and the Renaissance together with that of Greece.  How to adapt and combine elements of this broad classical heritage to meet present demands was the aim of a new class of professional architects . 

The Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris epitomized this methodology.  Many Americans trained in Paris.

Locally, the Atelier Rectagon, formed in the 1920s under the auspices of the Buffalo Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (organized in 1892) served as an informal school of Ecole des Beaux-Arts architectural design methods.

The term Beaux-Arts style or Beaux-Arts Classicism became part of the lexicon of American architecture during the period.  Truly, the past was prologue for many of the men and the few women who shaped the great urban expansion that began after the Civil War.

The first person from Buffalo reputed to have studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was George Cary (1859-1945).
- Francis R. Kowsky, "Reading Buildings in Buffalo," in Building Buffalo: Buildings From Books, Books From Buildings, Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, Buffalo NY, 2017, p. 50.

The school that taught the Beaux-Arts style of architecture in the late 19th century Very influential in the US in that many of the leading late 19th century architects had been trained at L'Ecole.

Richard Morris Hunt (1827-95) was the first American to study there and became the leading exponent in the U.S. of the Beaux-Arts style.

H. H. Richardson was the second. American to study there, but Richardson chose to develop his own style ,i.e., "Richardsonian Romanesque."

Other notable American architects who studied at L'Ecole were Charles McKim, John Carrere and Louis Sullivan

Situated on Paris' left bank across the Seine from the Louvre, l' Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts is one of the world's oldest and most prestigious fine-arts schools.

Its illustrious history began with the Fronde uprisings of 1648, survived the French Revolution of 1789, and witnessed the student revolt of 1968.

[The school's] unique collection of artworks from the Prix de Rome Contests parallels the school's rich history and serves as a testament to the remarkable heritage of this influential institution.


- Source (online April 2017)
School of arts founded in 1648 by Cardinal Mazarin developed studies in architecture, drawing, painting, sculpture, engraving, modeling, and gem cutting. The school was brought under control of the government by Louis XIV originally to guarantee a pool of artists available to decorate the palaces and paint the Royalty but was made independent by Napoléon III in 1863.

Wholly aside from the discipline of painting, was the discipline of Architecture and was one of the most important studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and would  influence a whole school of thought. From America came some of the best students to study and it would the Beaux-Arts that buildings such as the Boston Public Library, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Grand Central Station, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and many of the Great public buildings in America of the late 1800's through the 1930's were built.

Today, the Ecole still exists although the Architectural school was split off after the student riots of 1968. 

Ateliers
... the small independent ateliers where students learned directly under the tutelage of an established “Master” who were not part of the Ecole. Students not in the Ecole trained in these ateliers with the hopes of passing the entrance exam, as well as students already in the Ecole wanting to get recognized by their association with a known "practicing Master".

- JSS Virtual Gallery (online April 2017)
École des Beaux-Arts (ākôl` dā bōzär`)[Fr.,=school of fine arts], French national school of fine arts, on the Quai Malaquais, Paris, founded in 1648 by Charles Le Brun with the consent of Cardinal Mazarin as the Académie de peinture et de sculpture; the title was changed in 1793, when it merged with the Académie d'architecture, founded in 1671 by Jean Baptiste Colbert.

It includes departments of painting, graphic arts, and sculpture and is free to artists whose previous training enables them to pass the entrance examinations.

Architecture was taught at the school until 1968. Students are prepared in the various courses to compete for the Prix de Rome, which provides admission to the Académie de France à Rome. Besides its extensive collection of plaster casts of antiquities, the École is known for its superb collection of old-master drawings and for its exhibitions.

- The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (online April 2017)s


Photos and their arrangement © 2004Chuck LaChiusa
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