Arthur Drexler (Editor)
The Architecture of the École of Beaux-Arts.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1983. Second printing. 0870702440 525 pages.
Large-format volume, measuring approximately 9.5" x 11.5", is bound in dark blue cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spine and front cover. Book shows very light shelfwear, with tiny dent to fore edge of front board. Binding is firm. Interior is clean and bright. Dust jacket exhibits light shelfwear. Jacket is preserved in mylar cover.
This volume is based on an exhibition shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Oct. 29, 1975-Jan. 4, 1976.
"Here, for the first time in this century, is an opportunity to re-examine the philosophy of the Beaux-Arts school of architecture, whose two-hundred-year history culminated in the body of ideas and buildings against which the modern movement rebelled.
Based on the doctrines of architecture formulated by the French Academy during the eighteenth century, the École des Beaux-Arts system of instruction stressed drawing as teh primary means of visualizing architectural form. The "Concurs du Grand Prix d Rome" was the ultimate test of ability, and this index of the Academy's ideals throughout the period. This book reproduces in more than 200 drawings, projects for the Grand Prix and for virtually every other type of competition or assignment at the École des Beaux-Arts. Included are drawings by students who subsequently became pre-eminent as professional architects - among them Henri Labrouste, architect of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Genevieve, and Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris Opéra. All illustrations are accompanied by extensive explanatory captions, and a selection of important larger studies appear on specially inserted gatefolds, enabling the reader to view them in usually clear and precise detail."
Contents:
Preface and acknowledgments by Arthur Drexler.
"Engineer's Architecture: Truth and Its Consequences" by Arthur Drexler;
"The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts" by Richard Chafee;
"Architectural Composition at the École des Beaux-Arts from Charles Percier to Charles Garnier" by David Van Zanten;
"The Romantic Idea of Architectural Legibility: Henri Labrouste and the Neo-Grec" by Neil Levine;
"Beaux-Arts Buildings in France and America".
Notes to the essays
Lists of architects and their works