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(BOULLÉE, Étienne-Louis) ROSENAU, Helen (ed.)
Boullée's Treatise on Architecture.
A complete presentation of the Architecture, Essai sur l'art, which forms part of the Boullée papers (Ms.9153) in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
First edition. One of the foremost proponents of neo-classical architecture in eighteenth-century France, Boullée went to visionary extremes developing an abstract geometrical style, inflating geometric forms to monumental scale and stripping them of any superfluous decorative elements. Exemplary was his proposal for a cenotaph for Isaac Newton which consisted of a 150 m sphere. His ideas had their greatest impact in the decade between 1778-88 when he was teaching at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, the period during which this present work - largely a series of designs for public buildings on an entirely impractical scale - was compiled. This was its first publication, edited by Helen Rosenau a leading authority on idealist architecture. This copy with the ownership inscription of P. F. Norton erstwhile professor of architecture at the University of Massachusetts.
Octavo. Original dark blue buckram, title gilt to upper board and spine. In the dust jacket. 24 plates. Very good in slightly rippled jacket.
