Claude-Nicolas Ledoux Biography, Buildings and Best Books

Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806) was a French architect and one of the most original figures of neoclassicism. He built the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, the theatre of Besançon and the ring of toll houses around Paris, and in his book L’Architecture he published an ideal city, Chaux, with buildings of pure geometric forms whose shapes expressed their purpose, anticipating ideas of modern architecture.

Dormans and Paris

Ledoux was born in Dormans, in Champagne, in 1736. He studied in Paris at the Collège de Beauvais and with the architect Jacques-François Blondel, and began his career designing interiors and town houses for the Parisian aristocracy, among them the Hôtel d’Hallwyl and the Hôtel Guimard for the dancer Marie-Madeleine Guimard.

Louveciennes and the Royal Saltworks

In 1771 he built the Pavillon de Louveciennes for Madame du Barry, the mistress of Louis XV. Appointed inspector of the saltworks of Lorraine and Franche-Comté, he designed the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans (1775-1779), a semicircle of buildings around the director’s house, with heavy rusticated columns and carved stone urns spilling brine. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Besançon and the walls of Paris

Ledoux designed the theatre of Besançon (1784) and, for the Ferme générale, more than fifty toll houses for the new customs wall around Paris (1785-1789), each a variation on classical forms. Hated as symbols of taxation, most were destroyed, but the Rotonde de la Villette, the Barrière d’Enfer and a few others survive.

The Revolution and L’Architecture

Ledoux was imprisoned during the Terror and narrowly escaped execution. In his later years he devoted himself to his book, L’Architecture considérée sous le rapport de l’art, des mœurs et de la législation (1804), which presented the ideal city of Chaux and visionary projects such as the Oikema. He died in Paris in 1806.