Robert de Cotte and the Perfection of Architecture in Eighteenth-Century France

About this book

Robert de Cotte (1656/7-1735) Principal Architect to the King of France was among the most prominent European architects of his day. In a period that witnessed the ascendancy of Paris over Rome as the international center of fashion princes and nobles in Germany Italy and Spain eagerly commissioned him to design buildings in the French court style. Robert Neuman provides the first comprehensive examination of fifty or so building projects by de Cotte which include such extant works as the Htel dEstres Paris; Schloss Poppelsdorf Bonn; and his universally acknowledged masterpiece the Palais Rohan Strasbourg. After describing de Cottes training and the professional context in which he worked Neuman offers a thorough survey of de Cottes output. For each commission he recreates the actual design process showing how de Cotte manipulated an accepted vocabulary of architectural forms to meet the patrons specific requirements. De Cottes own drawings many reproduced here for the first time and quotations from a wide variety of contemporary writings vividly supplement the case histories. Beautifully illustrated Neumans much-needed book reveals de Cotte as an innovative and strikingly modern architect.