MANILA, Philippines - Who is the French architect who completed the new Louvre in Paris in the late 19th century?
He was born in Versailles on Nov. 1810 to a building contractor. He was admitted to the Ecole de Beaux Arts in 1829 where he studied under Jean Nicolas Huyot and in 1833 received second place in the Prix de Rome competition.
In 1839, he won the Prix de Rome prize and spent 1840 to 1844 as a pensionary of the French Academy in Rome at the Villa Medici. On his return to France, he opened his own practice and was appointed as an inspector for the Chamber des deputes.
Having carried out alterations at the Chateau de Meudon and for the housing of the Manufacture Royale de Procelain de Sevres, he was appointed chief architect of the Chateau de Fontainebleau, one of the main seats of Napoleon III and the Second French Empire, where he designed a new imperial theater.
His design for the theater at Fontainebleau led to his appointment as success to LTJ Visconti in the project to build a connecting structure between the old Louvre and the Tuileries.
He retained much of Visconti’s original plan but introduced some modifications of his own, especially on the side of the rue de Rivoli, where he added rich ornamentation and made extensive use of iron.
He relied on structural motifs already present in the older buildings, but the resulting effects were almost entirely original.
Most striking are the corner and central pavilions. Projecting from the corners of the steep mansard roof are stone dormers ornamented in a nearly Baroque manner. The central pavilions flanking the Cour de Carrousel have convex mansard roofs forming, as it were, “square†domes. Such features were imitated all over the world for the next 30 years and came to be symbolic of the Second Empire architectural style.
For the Empress Eugenie, he created sumptuous apartments in the Palais des Tuileries, lost when that palace burned in the Paris Commune of 1871.
He also designed and built the hotel Particulier of Achille Fould, Minister of Finance under Napoleon III, and that of Museum Director Emilien de Nieuwrkerke and theHotel Emonville in Abbeville.
For the Paris Exposition in 1855, he built the temporary Palais de Beaux Arts et de l’industrie.
For his work, he was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1854, and a Commander of the Legion in 1857. He died in Paris on December 31,1880.
Last week’s question: Who is the American chef who has made an indelible mark on the West Coast dining landscape with his restaurant Redd and has had numerous nominations for the James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Pacific Region?
Answer: Richard Reddington
Winner: Anne SC. Aran of Binangonan, Rizal
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Text your answer to 0915-6486414 with your name and address. One winner will be chosen through a raffle of texts with the correct answer. The winner will receive P2,000 worth of SM gift certificates for use at Our Home, SM Department Store, or SM Supermarket. They can claim their prize at Our Home in SM Megamall. Call the store manager at 634-1950.Bring photocopies of two valid IDs and a clipping of the Design Quiz issue in which you appear as winner.