Henri Labrouste

The French architect-engineer Pierre François Henri Labrouste (1801-1875), a major innovator in the field of cast-iron construction, was a leader of the romantic-classicist school of architecture.

Henri Labrouste was born in Paris on May 11, 1801. At the age of 18 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts as a pupil of A. L. T. Vaudoyer and L. H. Lebas. In 1824 Labrouste won the Grand Prix de Rome and studied Roman construction at the Villa Medici (1825-1830). While in Italy he produced a controversial restoration of the temples at Paestum (1828-1829); his account of the restoration appeared in Les Temples de Paestum (1877). On his return to Paris he opened a studio at the école des Beaux-Arts and became a leader of the rationalist school of thought, which opposed the traditional eclectic approach to architecture of the period.

Among Labrouste's earliest works are an asylum for Lausanne, Switzerland, won by competition (1837-1838), and a prison for Alessandria, Italy (1840). His first major commission, the Bibliothèque Ste-Geneviève in Paris, came in 1839 (built 1843-1850). This long, oblong masonry structure in the romantic-classicist tradition of early-19th-century French, English, and German architecture was innovative in itself. In addition, it incorporated a light cast-iron structure as a roof-support system. Sixteen slender cast-iron columns, of proportions to be found only in Pompeiian wall paintings, divide the long space into two barrel-vaulted naves; the barrel vaults consist of interlaced wires covered with layers of plaster, supported on delicately scrolled arches springing from the columns.

The reading room and the stacks Labrouste added to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (1858-1868) continued the developments begun at Ste-Geneviève. The roof of the reading room is supported on 16 columns, 32 feet high and only 1 foot in diameter. This grid of columns supports nine shallow terra-cotta domes, each with an oculus and with no lateral thrusts to the exterior walls. Beyond a large glass opening from the reading room is an even more functional stack area, five stories high, including a basement. Natural light from the glass roof filters down through cast-iron "cat-walk" gratings. Bridges link the circulation areas from one stack to another.

Labrouste's attitude to design is summed up in a quotation from Souvenirs d'Henri Labrouste (1928): "In architecture, form must always be appropriate to function. … A logical and expressive decoration must derive from the construction itself." He died at Fontainebleau on June 24, 1875.

Further Reading

A comprehensive discussion of Labrouste's contribution to architecture is in Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1958; 2d ed. 1963), and in Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time, and Architecture (4th ed. 1962). The American Association of Architectural Bibliographers published Thomas N. Maytham, Henri Labrouste, Architect: A Bibliography (1955).

French architect, he studied under A.-L.-T. Vaudoyer and L.-H. Lebas, and then at the French Academy in Rome, where he mixed with the future leaders of the profession in France. His theoretical reconstruction (though based on accurate site-surveys) of the Doric temples at Paestum (1829) was described later by Viollet-le-Duc as a ‘revolution on several folio sheets of paper’ because it proposed a re-ordering of the accepted historical sequence of the temples and suggested that the architectural type was adapted to new environmental, social, and political conditions in a colonial setting, thereby upsetting the accepted opinions of French academics. Indeed, this work (which included the application of colour) is considered to be a watershed in French architecture, heralding a new order to challenge the supremacy of Classicism. When he returned to Paris he opened an atelier (architectural studio and office) in 1830 which promoted rationalist ideas. His reputation rests on his Bibliothèque Ste-Geneviève, Paris (1838–50), a superbly clear design in which an elegant iron structure seems to have been slotted into the cage of masonry: it was one of the first monumental (rather than utilitarian) public buildings to have an exposed iron frame. The masonry exterior is a powerful Cinquecento essay employing a range of semicircular-headed windows to illuminate the great library space, but it has mnemonic aspects too, for there are allusions to Alberti's Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini, Sansovino's Biblioteca Marciano, Venice, and Wren's Trinity College Library, Cambridge. The Bibliothèque placed him in the highest echelons of French Government architects, and between 1854 and 1875 he created the iron-and-glass interior of the Reading-Room at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Rue Richelieu, Paris, and built the stack-rooms, again employing iron. He published his work on Paestum in 1877, and designed several other buildings, including tombs in Montmartre and Montparnasse Cemeteries, Paris.

His brother, François-Marie-Théodore (1799–1885), was also an architect, again trained under Vaudoyer and Lebas. He was architect-in-chief to the hospitals of Paris in succession to Gau from 1845.

Bibliography

• Drexler (ed.) (1977)
• Hitchcock (1977)
• H. Labrouste (1877)
• L. Labrouste (1885, 1902)
• Middleton and Middleton & Watkin (1987)
• Millet (1882)
• Saddy (1977)
• Jane Turner (1996)
• van Zanten (1977, 1987)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: French architect who was among the first to use metal construction successfully (1801-1875)
  Synonym: Labrouste

Henri Labrouste
Portrait photograph of Labrouste in profile.
Born	11 May 1801(1801-05-11) Paris
Died	24 June 1875 (aged 74)
Nationality	French
Occupation	architect
Known for	École des Beaux Arts

Pierre François Henri Labrouste (11 May 1801–24 June 1875) was a French architect from the famous École des Beaux Arts school of architecture. After a six year stay in Rome, Labrouste opened an architectural training workshop, which quickly became the center of the Rationalist view. He was noted for his use of iron frame construction, and was one of the first to realize the importance of its use.

Sainte-Geneviève library in Paris.

Biography

Born in Paris, Labrouste entered Collège Sainte-Barbe as a student in 1809. He was then admitted to the second class in the Royal School of Beaux Arts to the Lebas-Vaudoyer workshop in 1819. In 1820, he was promoted to the first class. Competing for the Grand Prix, Labrouste took second place behind the Palais de Justice by Guillaume-Abel Blouet in 1821. In 1823 he won the departmental prize, and worked as a lieutenant-inspector (sous-inspecteur) under the direction of Godde during the construction of Saint-Pierre-du-Gros-Caillou. 1824 was a turning point in Labrouste's life, as he won the competition with a design of a Supreme Court of Appeals. In November he left Paris for Italy, visiting Turin, Milan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Modena, Bologna, Florence and Arezzo.

Stay in Rome

Receiving a pension or stipend from the French government for five years, the laureates stayed in the Medici Villa. The Directors of the French Academy at Rome said in correspondence about the laureates that in their studies of Anitiquity they "must research the laws of proportion and reduce them to formulas to be used by masters and students in Paris." ^[1]

His buildings include:

• Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, built between 1843 and 1850 in Paris.
• The Reading Room of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Rue Richelieu, Paris and built between 1862 and 1868.

References

1. ^ Correspondance des directeurs de l’Académie de France à Rome, tome 1, p.28

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