Espaces et longue durée : Julien-David Leroy et l'histoire de l'architecture

Abstract

"Space and the longue durée : Julien-David Leroy and the History of Architecture", by Christopher Drew Armstrong In the 18th century, the idea that architecture could be created by the fusion of classical and Gothic principles was a major innovation in French theory ; Jacques-Germain Soufflot's church of Sainte-Geneviève in Paris came to be regarded as the embodiment of this ideal. The premise that such a fusion was a valid approach to design seems to have been questioned, however, by the theorist Julien-David Leroy, whose work on the history of architecture grappled with the nature and cause of change over time. Ignoring Gothic architecture altogether, he endeavoured to show the development of Greek principles and their adaptation to Christian church planning, culminating in Soufflot's project for Sainte-Geneviève. Rejecting the cyclical model of historical change that was central to the work of Vasari and Winckelmann, Leroy developed diagrams to represent the progress of architecture since the earliest Egyptian and Greek constructions. Based on contemporary principles of etymology, Leroy's architectural diagrams suggest that forms acquire meaning over time by their adaptation to changing needs and beliefs, and that the principle catalyst for change are the interactions and exchanges among peoples. What is most significant about Leroy's approach to architectural history is the importance of space and his notion of a dialectic to understand the fusion of traditions.