The Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts included ateliers for Architecture as well as painting. Photos of the interiors of those schools reveal some of the spirit and style of the school, and the kind of work they did.
Most of the work was done on big flat tables lit by high windows or skylights. Each student's work was accomplished on individual drawing boards propped up on books or boxes, with T-squares and triangles to give them horizontal and vertical lines.
Because of the spirit of eclecticism during this era, these architects would have possessed plenty of drawing skills, and could draw from memory any architectural style, such as Gothic, Romanesque, or any of the classical orders. They also had skills at figure drawing, and presumably the hanging rings would have be for a model to do a long pose with upraised arms.
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RICHARD MORRIS HUNT (1827-1895) was the first American to be admitted to the school of architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts. He entered the Paris atelier of the architect Hector Lefuel in 1846. Wikipedia states, “Hunt is also renowned for his Biltmore Estate, America's largest private house, near Asheville, North Carolina, and for his elaborate summer cottages in Newport, Rhode Island, which set a new standard of ostentation for the social elite and the newly minted millionaires of the Gilded Age.”
HENRY HOBSON RICHARDSON (1838-1886), only the second U.S. citizen to attend the École’s architectural division, entered the atelier of Louis-Jules André in 1860. He did not finish his training there, as family backing failed due to the U.S. Civil War. However, he went on to achieve great success in America and is best known for his work in a style dubbed Richardsonian Romanesque.
The profound influence of Hunt and Richardson on the development of American architecture can hardly be overstated. Nearly every celebrated American architect of the next fifty years can be traced back directly to one of these two men. Charles McKim, Standford White, Cass Gilbert, Frank Furness, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ralph Adams Cram, Bertram Goodhue, Charles Maginnis, and the list goes on...
Jim, Thanks for those insights about Hunt and Richardson. I was aware of them, but didn't know about their connections to Beaux Arts training, nor was I aware of how much they were responsible for passing the torch to the next generation.
Great postcards! Are there any more images or further identification of specific ateliers?
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