Architect Drawings : A Selection of Sketches by World Famous Architects Through History
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Boullée, Etienne-Louis (1728–1799)<br />
Cenotaph, in the shape <strong>of</strong> a pyramid, 1780–1790, Bibliothèque Nationale de France,<br />
Ha 57 FT 6, 4/237 IM.281 Plate 24, 39 61.3cm, Ink and wash<br />
With a similar penchant for drawing illusion as Piranesi, Etienne-Louis Boullée built little but as an<br />
educator, theoretician and illustrator, he was a dominant figure in neoclassical visionary/revolutionary<br />
architecture.<br />
Boullée’s father was the Parisian architect, Louis-Claude Boullée, who encouraged his son’s education<br />
in architecture and drawing. Continuing his education in 1746, he studied with B<strong>of</strong>frand, Lebon,<br />
and Le Geay, where he learned the architecture <strong>of</strong> the French classical tradition. Over the next several<br />
years (1768 to 1779) he designed numerous houses such as Pernon, Thun, Brunoy, and Alexandre, and<br />
he built or rebuilt Château Tassé at Chaville, Château Chauvri at Montmorency, and Château de<br />
Péreux at Nogent-sur-Marne, all in the proximity <strong>of</strong> Paris. Later in life, Boullée became a member <strong>of</strong><br />
the Institut de France and was nominated a Pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> the Ecole Centrales (Kaufmann, 1955).<br />
As discussed in the introduction, Boullée, along with Ledoux and Lequeu, have been united under<br />
the title <strong>of</strong> visionary/revolutionary architects. They were attracted to theoretical arguments, which<br />
they displayed in their fantastic and monumental illustrations utilizing geometric shape and symbolism.<br />
Boullée’s fantasy images demonstrate massive, dynamic forms, substantially larger and more impressive<br />
than the monuments <strong>of</strong> Greece and Rome (Kaufmann, 1955).<br />
This drawing (Figure 3.3) portrays a starkly simple pyramid with two unadorned columns, all<br />
bathed in stormy modeled light. Although all architectural illustration envisions the future, Boullée’s<br />
fantasy consciously moves beyond the realm <strong>of</strong> possibility into a simplicity and scale unrelated to<br />
function or technology. Fantasy as a concept evokes the magical and suggests an extended associative<br />
capacity, whimsical invention, divination, and the expansive qualities <strong>of</strong> pure possibility (Casey,<br />
2000). The art historian David Summers writes that during the Renaissance, fantasia was related in<br />
meaning to invenzione. Although similar to the term ‘invention,’ its original meaning derives from a<br />
technical term from rhetoric. Invenzione was primary in the five-part division <strong>of</strong> rhetoric, and consisted<br />
<strong>of</strong> ‘ … the finding out or selection <strong>of</strong> topics to be treated, or arguments to be used’ (Gordon,<br />
1975, p. 82). Although viewed from a later period, Boullée represents an interesting connection<br />
between creative inspiration and the development <strong>of</strong> argument.<br />
The fantasies were intended for his architectural treatise <strong>Architect</strong>ure, Essai sur l’art, begun in 1780.<br />
In this essay, he wrote about what funerary monuments or cenotaphs meant to him: ‘I cannot conceive<br />
<strong>of</strong> anything more melancholy than a monument consisting <strong>of</strong> a flat surface, bare and unadorned,<br />
made <strong>of</strong> a light-absorbent material, absolutely stripped <strong>of</strong> detail, its decorations consisting <strong>of</strong> a play <strong>of</strong><br />
shadows, outlined <strong>by</strong> still deeper shadows’ (Rosenau, 1976, p. 106).<br />
Boullée employed the atmospheric qualities <strong>of</strong> the wash to create dramatic lighting effects, giving<br />
grandeur to the otherwise simple pyramid. He may have been attempting to persuade viewers <strong>of</strong> his<br />
beliefs, subconsciously convincing them <strong>of</strong> the sketch’s possibilities, and <strong>of</strong> the argument as a theoretical<br />
position for architecture. Concerning the use <strong>of</strong> pyramids as a conscious choice for a theoretical<br />
discussion, he said ‘I have given the Pyramid the proportions <strong>of</strong> an equilateral triangle because it is<br />
perfect regularity that gives form its beauty’ (Rosenau, 1976, p. 106). The choice <strong>of</strong> the mystical<br />
shape <strong>of</strong> the pyramid for his cenotaph obviously connects it to the great society <strong>of</strong> the Egyptians,<br />
encouraging a comparison to the monumentality <strong>of</strong> his architectural ideals. The character <strong>of</strong> the<br />
atmospheric effect also ‘proves’ his theory <strong>by</strong> means <strong>of</strong> emotional seduction, and positions this sketch<br />
as a powerful instrument <strong>of</strong> persuasion.<br />
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