Beaux-Arts architecture expresses the academic neoclassical architectural style taught at
the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The style "Beaux Arts" is above all the cumulative product
of two-and-a-half centuries of instruction under the authority, first, of the Académie
royale d'architecture, then, following the French Revolution of the late 18th century,
of the Architecture section of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The organization under the
Ancien Régime of the competition for the "Grand Prix de Rome" in architecture, offering
a chance to study in Rome, imprinted its codes and aesthetic on the course of instruction,
which culminated during the Second Empire and the Third Republic that followed. The
style of instruction that produced Beaux-Arts architecture continued without major interruption
until 1968. The Beaux-Arts style heavily influenced the
architecture of the United States in the period from 1880 to 1920. Non-French European architects
of the period 1860–1914 tended to gravitate toward their own national academic centers
rather than fixating on Paris. British architects of Imperial classicism, in a development culminating
in Sir Edwin Lutyens's New Delhi government buildings, followed a somewhat more independent
course, owing to the cultural politics of the late 19th century.
Training
The Beaux-Arts training emphasized the mainstream examples of Imperial Roman architecture between
Augustus and the Severan emperors, Italian Renaissance, and French and Italian Baroque
models especially, but the training could then be applied to a broader range of models:
Quattrocento Florentine palace fronts or French late Gothic. American architects of the Beaux-Arts
generation often returned to Greek models, which had a strong local history in the American
Greek Revival of the early 19th century. For the first time, repertories of photographs
supplemented meticulous scale drawings and on-site renderings of details.
Some aspects of Beaux-Arts approach could degenerate into mannerisms. Beaux-Arts training
made great use of agrafes, clasps that links one architectural detail to another; to interpenetration
of forms, a Baroque habit; to "speaking architecture" in which supposed appropriateness of symbolism
could be taken to literal-minded extremes. Beaux-Arts training emphasized the production
of quick conceptual sketches, highly finished perspective presentation drawings, close attention
to the program, and knowledgeable detailing. Site considerations tended toward social and
urbane contexts. All architects-in-training passed through
the obligatory stages — studying antique models, constructing analos, analyses reproducing
Greek or Roman models, "pocket" studies and other conventional steps — in the long
competition for the few desirable places at the Académie de France à Rome with traditional
requirements of sending at intervals the presentation drawings called envois de Rome.
Characteristics
Beaux-Arts architecture depended on sculptural decoration along conservative modern lines,
employing French and Italian Baroque and Rococo formulas combined with an impressionistic
finish and realism. In the façade shown to the right, Diana grasps the cornice she sits
on in a natural action typical of Beaux-Arts integration of sculpture with architecture.
Slightly overscaled details, bold sculptural supporting consoles, rich deep cornices, swags
and sculptural enrichments in the most bravura finish the client could afford gave employment
to several generations of architectural modellers and carvers of Italian and Central European
backgrounds. A sense of appropriate idiom at the craftsman level supported the design
teams of the first truly modern architectural offices.
Though the Beaux-Arts style embodies an approach to a regenerated spirit within the grand traditions
rather than a set of motifs, principal characteristics of Beaux-Arts architecture included:
Flat roof Rusticated and raised first story
Hierarchy of spaces, from "noble spaces"—grand entrances and staircases— to utilitarian
ones Arched windows
Arched and pedimented doors Classical details: references to a synthesis
of historicist styles and a tendency to eclecticism; fluently in a number of "manners"
Symmetry Statuary, sculpture, murals, mosaics, and
other artwork, all coordinated in theme to assert the identity of the building
Classical architectural details: balustrades, pilasters, garlands, cartouches, acroteria,
with a prominent display of richly detailed clasps, brackets and supporting consoles
Subtle polychromy History
On the eve of World War I the Beaux-Arts style began to find major competitors among the
architects of Modernism and the nascent International Style. The prestige of the École gave the
style "Beaux-Arts" a second wind in combining the new manner with the traditional training.
Beaux-Arts architecture by country France
Buildings École des Beaux-Arts
LeFuel wings of the Louvre Palais Garnier
Palais du Trocadéro Gare d'Orsay
Grand Palais, Petit Palais, and the Pont Alexandre III
Palais de Chaillot United States
The first American architect to attend the École des Beaux-Arts was Richard Morris Hunt,
followed by Henry Hobson Richardson. They were followed by an entire generation. Henry
Hobson Richardson absorbed Beaux-Arts lessons in massing and spatial planning, then applied
them to Romanesque architectural models that were not characteristic of the Beaux-Arts
repertory. His Beaux-Arts training taught him to transcend slavish copying and recreate
in the essential fully digested and idiomatic manner of his models. Richardson evolved a
highly personal style freed of historicism that was influential in early Modernism.
The "White City" of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago was a triumph
of the movement and a major impetus for the short-lived City Beautiful movement in the
United States. Beaux-Arts city planning, with its Baroque insistence on vistas punctuated
by symmetry, eye-catching monuments, axial avenues, uniform cornice heights, a harmonious
"ensemble," and a somewhat theatrical nobility and accessible charm, embraced ideals that
the ensuing Modernist movement decried or just dismissed. The first American university
to institute a Beaux-Arts curriculum is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1893,
when the French architect Constant-Désiré Despradelles was brought to MIT to teach.
The Beaux-Arts curriculum was subsequently begun at Columbia University, the University
of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. From 1916, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New
York City schooled architects, painters, and sculptors to work as active collaborators.
Numerous American university campuses were designed in the Beaux-Arts, notably: Columbia
University,, designed by McKim, Mead, and White; the University of California, Berkeley,
designed by John Galen Howard; the campus of MIT, designed by William W. Bosworth, Carnegie
Mellon University, designed by Henry Hornbostel; and the University of Texas, designed by Paul
Philippe Cret. Though Beaux-Arts architecture of the twentieth
century might on its surface appear out of touch with the modern age, steel-frame construction
and other modern innovations in engineering techniques and materials were often embraced,
as in the 1914–1916 construction of the Carolands Chateau south of San Francisco.
The noted Spanish structural engineer Rafael Guastavino, famous for his vaultings, known
as Guastavino tile work, designed vaults in dozens of Beaux-Arts buildings in the Boston,
New York, and elsewhere. Beaux-Arts architecture also brought a civic face to the railroad.
Two of the best American examples of the Beaux-Arts tradition stand within a few blocks of each
other: Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library.
Architects
In the late 1800s, during the years when Beaux-Arts architecture was at a peak in France, Americans
were one of the largest groups of foreigners in Paris. Many of them were architects and
students of architecture who brought this style back to America. The following individuals,
students of the École des Beaux-Arts, are identified as creating work characteristic
of the Beaux-Arts style within the United States:
Otto Eugene Adams William A. Boring
William W. Bosworth Arthur Brown Jr
Daniel Burnham Carrère and Hastings
James Edwin Ruthven Carpenter, Jr. Paul Philippe Cret
Edward Bennett Dougherty Ernest Flagg
Robert W. Gibson C. P. H. Gilbert
Cass Gilbert Thomas Hastings
Raymond Hood Henry Hornbostel
Richard Morris Hunt Charles Klauder
Electus D. Litchfield Austin W. Lord
William Rutherford Mead Julia Morgan
Charles Follen McKim Harry B. Mulliken
Henry Orth Willis Polk
John Russell Pope Arthur Wallace Rice
Henry Hobson Richardson Francis Palmer Smith
Edward Lippincott Tilton Horace Trumbauer
Enoch Hill Turnock Stanford White
Evarts Tracy of Tracy and Swartwout The prominent architectural firm of McKim,
Mead & White designed many well-known Beaux-Arts buildings.
Canada Beaux-Arts was very prominent in public buildings
in Canada in the early 20th Century. Notably all three prairie provinces' legislative buildings
are in this style. Buildings
The NHL sponsored Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto London and Lancashire Life Building, Montreal
Old Montreal Stock Exchange Building Alden Hall, Meadville
Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto Sun Tower, Vancouver
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal Government Conference Centre, Ottawa
Saskatchewan Legislative Building, Regina Alberta Legislative Building, Edmonton
Manitoba Legislative Building, Winnipeg, Millennium Centre, Winnipeg,
Commemorative Arch, Royal Military College of Canada, in Kingston, Ontario
Bank of Nova Scotia, Ottawa Union Station, Toronto
Dominion Public Building, Toronto Dominion Square Building, Montreal
Canada Life Building, Toronto Sun Life Building, Montreal
Mount Royal Chalet, Montreal Supreme Court of Canada Building, Ottawa
Architects William Sutherland Maxwell
John M. Lyle Ross and Macdonald
Sproatt & Rolph Pearson and Darling
Ernest Cormier Jean-Omer Marchand fr:Jean-Omer Marchand
Argentina From 1880 the so-called Generation of '80
came to power, who were admirers of France as a model republic and for cultural and esthetic
tastes. Buenos Aires is a center of Beaux-Arts architecture which continued to be built as
late as the 1950s. Buildings
1898: Buenos Aires House of Culture, Buenos Aires
1906: Palacio del Congreso Nacional (es), Buenos Aires
1908: Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires 1931: Palacio de la Legislatura (es), Buenos
Aires 1910: Club Mar del Plata (es), Mar del Plata
1910: Tucumán Government Palace, San Miguel de Tucumán
1892: The Water Company Palace, Buenos Aires 1889: Pabellón Argentino (es), taken down
and reconstructed in Buenos Aires 1929: Estrugamou Building, Buenos Aires
Architects Alejandro Bustillo
Julio Dormal Gainza y Agote
Alejandro Christophersen Edouard Le Monnier
León Dourge Paul Pater
Jacques Dunant Norbert Maillart
Carlos Thays Beaux-Arts architecture of Argentina
Australia
Several Australian cities have some significant examples of the style, where it was typically
applied to large solid looking public office buildings and banks during the 1920s.
National Theatre, Melbourne General Post Office building, Forrest Place,
Perth Argus Building. LaTrobe Street, Melbourne
Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy, Melbourne
Commonwealth Bank building, Martin Place, Sydney
Perpetual Trustee Company Limited, Hunter Street, Sydney
Westpac Bank Building, Elizabeth Street, Brisbane Port Authority building, Melbourne
Former Mail Exchange Building, Melbourne Herald Weekly Times Building. Flinders Street,
Melbourne Commonwealth Bank building, Forrest Place,
Perth References
Further reading Reed, Henry Hope and Edmund V. Gillon Jr.
1988. Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York: A Photographic Guide
United States. Commission of Fine Arts. 1978, 1988. Sixteenth Street Architecture – profiles
of Beaux-Arts architecture in Washington D.C. SuDoc FA 1.2: AR 2.
External links New York architecture images, Beaux-Arts gallery
Advertisement film about the usage of the Beaux Arts style as a reference in kitchen
design Hallidie Building
Beaux-Arts architecture Buildings/Structures