The Architectural Revolution of the Enlightenment: Boullée and Ledoux's Geometric Utopias
2025-01-20
During the late 18th century French Revolution, two architects, Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, rejected the excessive ornamentation of Baroque and Rococo styles, embracing bold new geometries. Boullée's designs were highly idealistic, utilizing spheres, cubes, and pyramids to create monumental structures like his massive spherical cenotaph for Newton, showcasing a pursuit of science and light, though largely unrealized. Ledoux, more pragmatic, designed functional structures such as the Chaux saltworks, balancing practicality with symbolic geometric layouts. Both architects' works reveal an extreme focus on geometric forms and utopian ideals, leaving a lasting impact on architectural design.