Mathurin Crucy

Architect and French town planner born with Nantes on February 2nd 1749, died in 1826, he is the originator of an urban and architectural program of neo-classic style which marked its birthplace deeply.

Biography

Wire of a timber contractor, Mathurin Crucy follows a training of architect to Nantes within the workshop of Jean-Baptiste Ceineray. With the assistance of this one, it goes up to Paris and meets the architect Etienne-Louis Boullée and the painter Joseph-Marie Vien. This last assistance to be reached the royal Academy of architecture in 1771. He is the prize winner of the first price of the Academy in 1774, called thereafter Prix of Rome, for his project of " Water minérale" public baths;. It is the means for him of accomplishing a stay in Italy during four years. He côtoie with the Médicis Villa the painter Jacques-Louis David and discovers the villas of the architect Andrea Palladio.

He returns to Nantes in 1779 and succeeds Ceyneray like architect-voyer of the commune in 1780. He is thus in charge of the direction of the great urban developments in progress at the time and in particular the transformation of the current Graslin district and the Stock Exchange. He is thus at the origin of the town-planning of current the Place Graslin and the theater of the same name.

He resigns in 1800 to devote himself to the family workshop of naval construction, activity in full expansion because of the wars with the England. But its company goes bankrupt in 1808 and it gives up this activity in 1810 completely. It is named architect of the department of the Loire-lower in 1809.

In 1808, it is called by the sculptor François-Frederic Lemot (1771-1827) to carry out a field of Italian inspiration, in the commune of Clisson. It is the current site of the Garenne Lemot. It starts the installation of the park and built the house of the gardener of Garenne, between 1811 and 1815, one of the masterpieces of rustic architecture to Italian in France. It is scrambled with Lemot in 1821 and never completes the project, left with its successor Pierre-Louis Van Cleemputte.

Principal achievements

1780-1788: Place Graslin
1783: Hotel of Montaudoin or the Columns, on current the Place Marshal-Foch
1784-1788: Theater Graslin in Nantes
1787: Royal Place (destroyed during the Second world war and rebuilt on the same model slightly larger)
1787: Cathedral of Rennes (realization of the plans after the destruction of the building at the time of the large fire)
1789: Corn exchange (destroyed in 1882)
1791: Course Cambronne (plane, finished in the current of the XIXe century)
1802: Public baths (destroyed) and western quays of the Island Feydeau
1807: Market with fish (destroyed in 1851)
1808: Produce exchange of Nantes
1809-1811: Hospital Saint-Jacob de Pirmil
1811-1815: House of the gardener of the field of Garenne Lemot, communes of Gétigné and Cugand, close to Clisson
1818-1823: Factories of the garden of Garenne-Lemot (temple of the friendship, column, obelisk)
1816: beginning of work of the house of Master of Garenne-Lemot, within Crucy (which gives up the building site in 1823)

References

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