Jacques Gondouin

Jacques Gondouin (or Gondoin) is a French architect born with Saint-Ouen the June 7th 1737 and died in Paris the December 29th 1818.

Biography

Wire of a gardener of the Castle of Choisy that Louis XV called “good Gondouin”, Jacques Gondouin accepted from the King, in 1756 - 1757, a pension in order to “put itself in a position to learn the drawing and architecture”. He accepted the teaching of Michel Barthélemy Hazon with the royal Académie of architecture and, with the École of the Art schools, that of Jacques-François Blondel. Receipt third with the contest of the Price of Rome in 1759, it spent five years to Rome (1761 - 1766) thanks to a purse allocated by Louis XV and became there the friend of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. It returned to France after having also remained in Holland and in England and is established as architect.

He quickly constituted beautiful private customers which allowed him to grow rich in an important way. In 1767, Robert Jannel, general intendant of the Stations and Relay of France, appointed it architect of the post office building.

In 1769, it accepted the ordering of the new School of Surgery built on the suggestion of the surgeon of King Germain Pichault of Martinière (1771 - 1786). The building affects the shape of a private mansion. The court is surrounded by a colonnade ionic and separated from current the Rue of the Medical school by column S, organization which produced a great impression on the contemporaries by the absence of the traditional elements of composition such as the houses of angle or the fore-part. A line of ionic columns on pedestal court along rise on the level in the ground, supporting a perfectly rectilinear Entablature, deprived of Architrave. In the center the columns, doubled in-depth, spare a passage which gives access to the court. At each end, the ground floor is bored of three bays in semicircular arch, punctuated by the columns; the first stage is equipped with rectangular windows, except for the three central spans which comprise an oblong panel decorated with a carved decoration. In the court, surrounded by girdled low galleries of colonnades, the amphitheater of anatomy of 1500 places, cover of a cupola is and lit by a Oculus, example archetypal of the style néo-antique. One finds also on both sides other classrooms, a laboratory, a vault, a room of defense of theses, a library on the first floor.

Although this building then appeared to deviate from many canonical rules of the classical architecture, he was extremely admired, at the same time by the professionals and the general public, for what was perceived like a simplicity with the Antique and the play of the subtlety of the proportions and volumes vigorous. Quatremère de Quincy qualified it the “most traditional building of the 18th century”. The building, inspired of projects given before by architects who had made the stay of Rome, but the first with being carried out in this style, was regarded as a kind of proclamation of the Néo-classicisme.

At the beginning, the architect had proposed to include the school in an overall urban development, which envisaged to transform the convent of the Cordelier S located opposite into prison for debts, with a punctuated wall of blind windows, and to add an imposing doric gantry to the church Saint-Like adjacent. The plan was not carried out, mainly because of the refusal of Franciscains to yield their building.

Jacques Gondouin was also architect and draftsman of the Furniture depository of the Crown (1769 - 1784). For this reason, he saw himself ordering by the intendant and general inspector of the Furniture depository, Pierre Elisabeth de Fontanieu, of rich person decorations for the Hôtel of Conti, which sheltered the Furniture depository then. These decorations were then reinstalled in the new building built place Louis XV behind the frontage drawn by Angel-Jacques Gabriel. As draftsman of the Furniture depository, Gondouin drew many pieces of furniture for the royal residences, in particular the Candélabre S placed in the Galerie of the Ices of the Château of Versailles in 1769 at the time of the marriage of the Dauphin.

In December 1775, it was authorized to accompany Fontanieu at the time of a one year voyage in Italy. On its return, it drew the high altar of the cathedral of Noyon. Starting from 1780, it constituted a beautiful field with Dammarie-the-Lily, close to Melun, where it withdrew under the French revolution, being made pass for a simple gardener to escape the storm.

In 1795, it was named with the Institut of France at the time of its creation, one of the six architects of the class of the Art schools, and belonged to the Council of the civil buildings. It is for this reason that it had to know projects of erection of a departmental column Place Vendôme and of a national column Place of the Harmony. Only the first saw the day in 1806.

In 1804, during the creation of the House of the Emperor, Gondouin belonged to the Advisory committee of the buildings of the Crown. It is for this reason that it presented in 1807 a project (noncarried out) for the installation of Napoleon I {{er}} to Versailles.

In 1806, it arranged the place vis-a-vis the School of Surgery with a monumental fountain (destroyed) made up of a basin and of four doric columns supporting a terrace.

Principal constructions

School of Surgery, today Medical college, Street of the Medical school, Paris (1771 - 1786).
interior Decorations of the Hotel of the Furniture depository (known as also of the Navy), Place of the Harmony in Paris, 1775.
High altar of the cathedral of Boundary-line (1777 - 1779)
Column Vendôme with the glory of the Large army, Place Vendôme in Paris, 1806 - 1810.

External bonds

the School of Surgery, - current Photographs.

Works

Description of the Schools of Surgery , Paris, Stones, Cellot and Jombert, 1780, folio gr. of 18 pp.ch., 1 f.n.ch., 1 face. by Gibelin and 30 pl. la majority dépl. by C.R.G. Poulleau. Drawn to 100 e.g. on strong paper at the time of the inauguration from the School of Surgery.

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