Beaux-Arts Style

Term applied to a style of classical architecture found particularly in France and the USA that derived from the academic teaching of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The style is characterized by its formal planning and rich decoration. The term is also found in writings by detractors of the Ecole's teaching methods and results: Frank Lloyd Wright, for example, called its products 'Frenchite pastry' ('In the Course of Architecture', Archit. Rec., xxiii (1908), p. 163). For Paris-trained architects, however, issues of style were in general secondary to the more permanent tenets of the doctrine put forward by the Ecole (see below).

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A grandiose architectural style as taught at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris primarily in the 19th century, widely applied until 1930 to large public buildings such as courthouses, libraries, museums, railroads, and to some pretentious residences. Characteristics often include formalism in design, symmetrical plans, heavily rusticated arched masonry, ashlar stone bases with rusticated stonework, especially on the ground floor and raised basement levels; sculptured figures; a massive and symmetric façade, often with a projecting central pavilion; a monumental attic story; commonly decorated with dentils; enriched entablatures; monumental flights of stairs; classical columns often set in close pairs; banded columns, engaged columns, coupled pilasters; highly decorated pilastered parapets; balconies; sculptured spandrels; decorative brackets; sculptured figures; ornamental details such as cartouches, floral patterns, Greek key designs, ornamental keystones, medallions; elaborately decorated panels, and the like; the roof, commonly a flat or low-pitched, hipped, or a mansard roof; often, domes and rotundas; rectangular windows symmetrically placed, with lintels overhead; arched dormers, balustraded windows, pedimented windows, or windows with balconets; doors, commonly paneled with a glass-paneled canopy over the primary entry-way, flanked by columns or pilasters; a wrought-iron grille on the exterior side of the entry door. Also called Beaux-Arts Classicism.