Beaux-Arts: Style or Method?

Beaux-Arts architecture, also known as Academic architecture,
designates a general approach to teaching and practice fostered by the
Académie Royale d'Architecture, incorporated into the École des
Beaux-Arts after the Revolution, the most influential architecture
school in the Western world since its foundation in the 17th century
until reforms in the mid-20th century terminated its architecture
program.

The École des Beaux-Arts

Gare d'Orsay, Paris, by Victor Laloux

The
whole system of Beaux-Arts architecture is grounded on the teaching
institutions, the Fine Arts Schools, and paramount among them the
Parisian École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (National Higher
School of Fine Arts, as it is known since 1918). The teaching of
architecture in an academic setting, as opposed to within the
apprenticeship system, was first introduced in 17th-century France. At
the instigation of François Blondel (1617-1686) and only after the
Academies of Painting and Sculpture, and of Music had been instituted,
the King Louis XIV authorized the creation of an Académie Royale
d'Architecture under the auspices of his minister Colbert in 1671. This
move was part of the process which led architecture from the status of
menial profession, akin to that of a stone mason, up to the level of
the other fine arts.

Initially, the École would not provide any
reward for its students other than the actual learning and the
opportunity to take part in design competitions; only later was a
diploma instituted, and even then, it was not the obligatory
achievement for most students. As the diploma became increasingly
important for professional practice, however, it became the rule for
students to remain at the school until they earned it, and other French
schools fought for the privilege of awarding a diploma, thereby
diminishing both the aura of the École's studios and its prominence
over architectural education. Unlike formal college education, the
École emphasized the responsibility of the student to seek out learning
in theory classes, and freely choose a patron to work under, often in the latter's professional practice as well as in his school studio.

The
Académie was shut down in 1793, during the French Revolution, and
reopened as the École des Beaux-Arts after the Restoration, in 1816. In
the meantime, several of its members who had been sympathetic to the
Revolution had been evicted. Some of the most eminent evictees, such as
the architect Grandjean de Montigny and the painter Debret, emigrated
to Brazil at the invitation of the Portuguese royalty, creating one of
the fine arts schools that most faithfully emulated their Parisian
namesake. The École went on uninterrupted until the virtual extinction
of its architecture program as a result of the reforms prompted by the
student riots of 1968. During its lifetime, the Académie and then École
spawned many like-minded institutions in French cities as well as
abroad, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in
Philadelphia and the Escola de Belas Artes do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).

Beaux-Arts: Style or Method?

Tokyo National Museum (WATANABE Jin, 1932-38), a Beaux-Arts work in Japanese style

Beaux-Arts
architecture is often misunderstood as a mere matter of style, and thus
frequently associated only with the “wedding-cake” kind of civic
buildings erected in the first decades of the 20th century (for example
in the inadequate account given on Wikipedia).
The teaching of the École des Beaux-Arts and its sister schools
empowered architects to produce works in any style. In fact, most
architects educated in the Beaux-Arts system from the mid-19th century
onwards worked in Medieval, exotic and eclectic styles in addition to
mastering the Classical vocabulary that was the École's hallmark from
the 17th to the 18th century. Many of them went on to become proficient
modernists, such as Tony Garnier, Paul Cret and Lucio Costa.

The Beaux-Arts Design Method

The
École developed a design sequence based on a logical structure that
distilled three fundamental stages in the making of architecture: the composition, or laying out the diagram (parti) of the building; étude,
refining the shapes and dimensions of the spaces in plan; and finally,
detailing plan, section and elevation. The main rule was
self-discipline, not conformity, although as in most architecture
schools to this day, studio patrons would push their own preferred styles onto their students.

Getting
each step right was critical to success, since the general massing and
size relationships established in the composition had to be followed in
the development stage. The point was to give the student a consistent
grasp of the relationship between program and non-program elements so
that he could accurately anticipate their disposition and space
requirements long before drawing their detail. Conversely, elements of
detailing could not be allowed to alter spatial relationships defined
in the composition and étude, lest they compromise the concept, timing and feasibility of the project.

Hierarchy and Civic Architecture

Lefuel, Pavillon Denon

Because
social life and building programs were becoming increasingly complex
and varied during the 19th century, the Beaux-Arts method refined a
highly structured hierarchy of monumental architecture and urban
spaces. For the city to be legible, rational and efficient, each
building and each street had to faithfully represent its standing in
the overall urban ranking. Generally, government and religious
structures ranked highest together with main boulevards, with the
architectural landscape stepping downwards through train stations,
libraries, and minor public buildings down to the privately-owned city
fabric.

A corollary to this hierarchy was the correct use of
styles and expression in order to give the desired character to each
building type. While in Europe this might have amounted to little more
than choosing between Medieval, Classical, and later Art Déco styles,
in Asia and the Americas a second layer of hierarchy developed, where
national and regional styles would be ranked next to the latest
stylistic fashions imported from the Old World. Colonial revival styles
were particularly prized, in early 20th century North and South
America, as a freer alternative to the highly structured classicism,
for use in middle- to low-ranking civic buildings as well as private
architecture.

Contextualism and Universalism

Lefuel, Pavillon Mollien

While
the brand of Classicism promoted in France during the second half of
the 19th century (known as Second Empire style) was adopted everywhere
the Beaux-Arts method had an influence, the system was particularly
suitable to a sophisticated interaction between the most exalted forms
of the Classical vocabulary, and their compromise within an existing
fabric to which buildings had to relate. Unlike proponents of purist
styles such as 18th-century Greek Revival and Modernism, which would
strive to express the ideal form in all circumstances, a true
Beaux-Arts architect showed all his talent when tailoring a façade to
fit the slightest changes in context, as exemplified in two of Lefuel's
designs for the enlargement of the Louvre.

Modernity and Modernism

Daniel Burnham, Flatiron Building: a modern Beaux-Arts high-rise

Beaux-Arts
architecture was portrayed by modernists as the anthitesis of
modernity, an old-fashioned style preoccupied with convention and
unresponsive to contemporary technology. The truth is that Beaux-Arts
architects distinguished between the use of modern technology, which
they all embraced, and the aesthetic expression of technology, about
which most were reserved.

Disputes about tradition and inventiveness arose even before the founding of the Académie, during what became known as the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes,
which pitted Vitruvius-worshipers behind François Blondel against
relativists who saw good taste as socially conditioned, grouped around
Claude Perrault. While Blondel had the upper hand in the structure of
the Académie, Perrault's ideas eventually prevailed. The triumph of
relativism was instrumental in the later introduction of structural
rationalism by Henri Labrouste and its development by Viollet-le-Duc.
By acknowledging that the Vitruvian proportions were not universally
valid, it opened the door to the argument that structural requirements
and their expression, as well as aesthetic and spatial issues on a
case-by-case basis, could determine the actual proportions that
elements of architecture would take.

Julien Guadet, one of the
last writers to synthesize the Beaux-Arts design theory in 1901, was
adamant in stating that aesthetic motives were no excuse for not
meeting any of the requirements of program or modern life, such as
indoor plumbing, natural lighting, water disposal or structural
efficiency. The dichotomy between modern requirements and traditional
aesthetics never existed as suggested by the modernists. For its
practitioners and supporters, the Beaux-Arts method always represented
a path to modernity, whether as an ideal blend of tradition and
innovation, a sign of a sophisticated society, or a manner of
consistently producing buildings that fulfilled new and old functional
requirements while retaining the beauty of all great architecture.

Further Reading

Drexler, Arthur M. (ed.) The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977.

Egbert, Donald Drew. The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.

Guadet, Julien. Éléments et théorie de l'architecture. Paris: Aulanier, 1901.

Middleton, Robin and David Watkin. Architecture of the Nineteenth Century. London: Phaidon, 2003.