Germain Boffrand

Germain Boffrand is a French architect born with Nantes the May 16th 1667 and died in Paris the March 19th 1754.

Biography

Raise Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Germain Boffrand was one of the major architects of the R3egence style which it contributed to create. It contributed to introduce in France the Rocaille style by integrating it into the classical architecture of the end of the reign of Louis XIV. Anxious to preserve the traditional monumentality, he sought to confine the ornamentation rubble in the interior apartments, where he used it with a very great control. Author of a treaty, the book of architecture (1745), in which is engraved its principal constructions, its work popularized the French taste in Europe.

Wire of an architect, Boffrand came to Paris in 1681 and started by studying the sculpture under the direction of François Girardon, before entering the workshop of Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Introduced by his/her uncle, Philippe Quinault, in the circles of the Court and the City, it was, as of 1690, associated with royal orders like the Orangerie of the Château of Versailles and worked with the Place Vendôme. It left the Building industries of the King in 1699 and started to work for primarily Parisian deprived customers. In 1709, it was in charge of the interior decoration of the apartments of the Hôtel of Soubise (work started in 1732). In a general way, Boffrand almost did not work for the King but for enlightened and fortunate private customers, willing to accept unthinkable architectural audacities in official buildings.

It had been received with the Academy of architecture as of 1709. In 1710, it took part in the enlarging of the Palais Bourbon. In 1732, it was named general inspector of the Highways Departments and gave projects to restructure and cleanse the district of the Markets. It took part in the contest for the place Louis XV. Named architect as a chief of the general hospital in 1724, it built in the island of the City superb Hôpital of the Found Children (1727, destroyed). He also worked in the Hospitals, in Salpêtrière, Bicêtre, the Hospital. Boffrand became member of the Royal Society the January 10th 1745.

Abroad, Boffrand built a fountain and a hunting lodge in the gardens of the castle of the voter of Bavaria Maximilien II Emmanuel and worked with Balthasar Neumann in 1724 on the episcopal Palate (1719 - 1744) of Würzburg.

It had as pupils François Dominique Barreau of Chefdeville, Charles-Louis Clérisseau and Emmanuel Héré, the architect of the Place Stanislas with Nancy.

Publications

It published several works on its art, inter alia the Livre of architecture , 1745, folio.

Works

Civil architecture

In Paris

  • Hotel the Brown one, 49 rue du Cardinal-Lemoine, Paris, 1700, built for Charles II the Brown one, nephew and sole legatee of the painter Charles Le Brun and relative of Boffrand: remarkable building, probably one of the first private buildings to be distinguished by the contemporary criticism
  • Hotel from Soubise, 60 Street of Francs-Bourgeois, Paris, 1704 - 1707 and 1735 - 1740
  • Frontage of the convent of the fathers of Mercy, 45 Street of the Files, Paris, built at the request of prince de Soubise which wished opposite worthy of its new hotel (see above), destroyed under the French revolution
  • Hôtel of Argenson (known as also Hôtel of the Chancellerie of Orleans), 19 street of the Good-Children, nearof the Palais Royal in Paris, 1707, destroyed in 1923
  • Small Luxembourg, 1709 - 1716: altered for Anne of Bavaria (1648-1723), Palatine Princess, widow of the prince de Condé
  • Transformation of the Hotel of Mayenne, 21 Street Saint-Anthony, Paris, 1709, for Charles-Henri of Lorraine, count de Vaudémont
  • Hotel Amelot de Gournay, 1 Street Saint-Dominique, Paris, 1712
  • Hotel of Torcy (known today under the name of Hotel Beauharnais, residence of the ambassador of Germany), 78 Street of Lille, Paris, 1713
  • Hotel of Seignelay, 80 Street of Lille, Paris, 1713 (joint of the precedent)
  • Library of the Arsenal, Paris, 1715 - 1725, for the duke of Maine: construction of a new main building for the apartments of the Large Master of the Artillery
  • Work of restoration of the Law courts, Paris, 1722
  • Gate of the hotel of Villars (today town hall of the 7th district of Paris), 116 Street of Grenelle, Paris

In Lorraine

Religious architecture

  • Vault of the Communion of the Church Saint-Merri, 78 Street Saint Martin's day, Paris, 1743
  • High altar of the Cathedral of Nantes
  • Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris: restoration of the southern rosette of the transept and repair of the vault of cross (1728 - 1729), restoration of the vault of the Holy Spirit (1746), carries cloister (1748)
  • Cathédrale of Nancy which it completed following Giovanni Betto, architect of the Duché of Lorraine.

Civil engineer works

External bonds

  • Card on the Structurae basis (with portrait)

  • Jean-Pierre Babelon, Note on Boffrand, Ministry for the Culture and the Communication, Delegation to the national celebrations, 2004

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