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NICOLAS LE CAMUS DE M&ZIÈRES'S ARCHITECTURE OF

EXPRESSION, AND THE THEATRE OF DEsnE AT THE END OF THE

ANCIEN

A tbesis submicted to the Foculty of Gnduate Shdies ancl Rcsurch in partial fuüi~lwnt of the requircmcnts of the &gmc of Pb.D.

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droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse.

Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels

de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement reproduits sans son autorisation. Cette dhstation explore le die de Psrchitecturie en tant que langage expressif, B travers la

théorie & caraake en France à la fin du dix-huitième siècle. Depuis 1'Antiquité. V~txuve

avait établi le rôle ex@ & l'riichiîecûne dans sa définition du teme "decorum". Pour Vitruve, toutefois, i'arcbiecaire exprimait un ordre qui transcendait sa matéfiaJité, l'ordre de l'univers. Vers la fin du dix-septième siècle. des changements culturels importants transfim&xent îa nature même & l'architechire. Le questionnement des fondations Mturelles de l'atchitecturie plongea la discipline dans une aisp potentiek & la sigaincation

erçbioecturale. Les architectes du dix-huitième siècle commeacèrent P exploxer le pouvoir

expressif de I'arcbitectule en tant que produit d'une imagination pasonnelie et spBcifique au contexte culturel. et essay&rent de pdserver sa signification de façon à oe que l'aricfiitecture demeure un langage commun. L'architecte fiançais et thtbncien Nicolas Le Camus de Mézikes (l72l-ca 1793)

développa une théorie de i'archiîectme suivant lquelie le caractk.ie d'un bâtiment se devait

d'exprimer sa destination ou le statu Joad du client pour lequel il était construit.

Contrairement aux

theones de caractère précédentes en architecture, cek de ï.e Camus était basée & façon explicite sur une analogie enm l'architefaire et le Mâm: le mode d'expression en itlçhitectune suivait une progression temporelle typique du déroulement dramatique dans une pièce de tbéât~; l'augmentation gradueiie de l'ornementation des portes et des seuils successifs rappelait la succession des dkors dans une performance de the$ere. Cette etude examine les théories d'expression au Mâûe qui influedrent de façon explicite les théorie architecturales de Le Camus, teIIes que la mise en sckie et le jeu des acteurs. Une Ctude plus poussée du de social et politique du théâtre dans sa forme construite met en eviâence l'innovation architecturale de l'oeuvre bâtie de Le Camus. Alors que les études pdcédentes sur Le Camus & MéP&~ies mettent l'emphase sur son plus imporîant traie architectural, Le génie & 1 'mchitectwe, ou l'anabgie & cet att avec ms sensutions, oette dissertation analyse egalement le vaste dpertoire des oeuvres écrites & Le Camus, incluant ses pièces de théâtxe, son roman, et une description d'un jardin pittoresque. Ces ouvrages dvèlent l'objectif réel qui sous-tend h Wrie architecturale & Le Camus: la volonté d'exprimer la tension &otique d'une architecture des sens. The completion of the present dissertation was made possible by the support and encouragement of many colleagues and professors. Many th& to my thesis supervisor,

Professor

Ricardo

Castro, for his inspiring suggestions and unwavering enthusiasm. 1 am gntehil to the memben of my cornmittee. Dr. Denis Salter and Rofessors Adnan

Sheppard

and Radoslav 2u.k for their critical insights and for theu careN reading of the various versions of the manuscript

1 would iike to thank Lily Chi for her precious input and encouragement at the

beginning of my researcb; David Leatherbarrow, for his suggestions at an early stage in the writing of the dissertation; and Gtegory Caicco. for some much appreciated lunch-the discussions. My sincere gratitude also goes to Dr. Robin Middleton. who generously answed my queries at a cruciaï the of my reseufh. My most sincere thanks go to Stephen Pacceli for his thorough and critical editing of bis dissertation. His digital red pen helped make the text more màable. Many thanks also to William Weima, who taught me a working methodology in the workshop that proved to be most helpful in the writing of this dissertation. Kathleen Innes-Révost gave me constant moral support and fiiendly concem du~g the fmai stage of this pmject. 1 am grateful to Marta Franco for her patience and for ailowing me to address the devance of theory in the pragmatic world of architecture. Speciai thanks to the staff of McGïlI University Inter-library Loan, who worked relentlessly to obtain essential material from libraries mund the world. and to the staff of the Canadian Centre for Architecture Library for their helpful support. My gratitude also goes to Liliane Heuraut for kindly sending me relevant articles and publications about the Hôtel de Bauveau in Paris; to Isabeile Srour-Cordesse and Henri Zuber for guiding me through the mm of the Archives Nationales in Paris; and to Louis Hubert, Curator at the Domaine National de Chambord, who helped me txace some of Servanâoni's stage sets.

1 owe my fondest thanks to my personal librarian, Alberta Pérez-G6mez, whose

tacm input helped kp my research on trock. 1 owe a special debt of gratitude to Frances C. Lonna, who taught me much. but most of aiI ibe depth and meaning of the architectural space of desire. kt but not least, my sweetest thanks to my daughter Beatriz. who helped me keep my sanity. PART 1: Staging an Architectural Theory ................... ......... 20 CHMER 1: ARC- AS AN E~PRJ~SSIVE WGUAGE ............................. -25 Claude Perrault

versus François Blondel ........................................................ -28 Chmeter theory

in architecture century .............. 33 .......... CHMER 2: LE CAMUS DE ~~&&REs. THE AR(XITECT AND TI-EORETICIAN -46

îïte lue of an architect, the complexity of a centwy ........................................... -46

Newtonim empirical science Md Le Camus & Mézi2res's technical sludies ............... -57 CHAPTER 3: CHARACIER ~RY IN THEATRICAL STAGING ............................. -85

......................................................... Servandoni. the noster of special effects 86

Tk Modulation of üghl Md &rhess ............................................................ 93 ............................................... Unity of place and the pe~ecting of an illusion 110 CHAITER 4: RULES OF EXPRESSION AND THE PARADOX OF A~NG ................... 119 Le Brun's dheory of expression ................................................................. 119 nie paradox of the actor ........................................................................ . 126 PART 2: Architecture as Theatre and the Relocated Spectator . 138 .......... CHAPIER 5: THEATRE AS THE LOCUS OF PUBLIC AND SOCIAL EXPRESSION 140 ..................................... To observe and be obse me& two imrchangeab le rofes 140 ?hr mles of chi@ and conventions CU the theatre ............................................ 146 New me f8r privote pe@ionnunces ............................................................. 149 CHAPTER 6: LA Sû&d DRAMATIQUE DE CHARONNE AND THE DRAME BOURGEOIS~S~ Diderot $3 drame bourgeois ....................................................................... 157
...... The staging of a play 167 ......... CHAPIER~: ~TREARC~ANDTHEROLEOFTHEPROS~ 173 ........................................................ Rethinking zdu spacc ofthe &torium 174

........................ ïïae beginning of a new tradition and the rebcation of the spectator 182

............................................................. aheatn'calïty of the monle phce 199

INTRODUCTION

During the last decade preceding the French Revolution. Nicolas Le Camus de Mezi&es (1721-a~ 1793). a French architect, proMc writer and theoretician, def'ined the role of architecture as an expressive language. Like der theorists. he believed that the airn of architecture was to communicate the character and social status of his clients, but he also believed that buildings codd evoke human sensations because they could speaic to the mind and move the souL He claimed that the essence of architecture was fictional and poetic. Ever since antiquity. Viüuvius had established the expressive role of architecture in his defintion of the term "decorum". For Vitnivius. however, architecture expressed an order that ~scended its materiaüty, it spoke of the order of the universe. Important cultural changes motivated by the Scientific Revolution transfomed the very nature of architecture in the late-seventeenth century. A questioning of the natural foundation of architecture plunged the whole discipline into a potential crisis of meaning. Eighteenth- century architects began to explore the expressive power of architecture as the product of a persad, culture-specific imagination, and stmggled to presewe its meaning so that it could remain a shared language.

Following

in the footsteps of Le Camus de Mt5ziih-es, and sharing his interest in a linguistic analogy,

Étienne-Lmis

BouW (1728-99). one of the most influentid architects and theoretichm of that period, wrote that architecture is an art that fdfiïs the most important needs of social Me. Moreover, it is an art that addresses our senses by communicating wious impressions to them. Like many of his contemporaries, Boullée believed that architecture could communicate moral principles by modulating the lives and emotions of its inhabitants. Par les monuments utiles. il nous offre l'image du bonheur; par les monuments agréables, il nous pdsente les jouissances de la vie; il nous enivre de la gloire par w les monuments qu'il lui el&ve; il ramène i'homme des idées morales par les monuments funeraires et, par ceux qu'il consacre la pieté. il &l&ve notre âme la contemplation du Cdateur. In his Eksai sur l'on (ca. 1793). Boullée compares architecave to a poem that can evoke in us emotions related to the use of a building, revealing its character. "Les images qu'ils offrent B nos sens," he writes, "devraient exciter en nous des sentiments analogues à Ilusage auquel ces mces sont consacrés." Indeed. this visual poetry was the primordial role of architecturie. Boullée clearly distinguishes between construction and the process of conception, emphasiring that architecture is not "l'art de bâtir," as Vitruvius had claimed. Vitmius mistook the effect for the cause, Boullée says, since conception is the fust and essential dimension of anchitectme: "C'est cette production de I'esprit, c'est cette création qui constitue l'architecture."* Foiiowing the French Revolution. however, architecturai theory undenvent some radical transformations, especially in the work of Jacques-Nicolas-Louis Durand (17-

1834). Paradoxicdy, Durand was Bouilée's close friend and most fervent disciple. For

Durand, architecture became an art of efficiency in which buildings must be composed

lÉtieme-~ouis Boullée, "Consiüérations sur l'importance et i'ucilité de l'architecture," Architecrure. Essai

sur l'an, ed. J.-M. Perouse de Montclos (Paris: Hennann, 1968), 33.

2"L'art de Miir n8est doDe qu'un art seamiah, qu'il wur panît amvenable de nommer la partie scientifique

de i'architecture." Ibid., 49. It is impoftant to remember that Boullée was a student of Jeaa-Laurent

Legeay, who proclaimecl the superiority of the idea over constructioa. See Louise Pelletier & Alberto

Peiiez-Gomez, Arc~ectural Represenîütion and the Perspective Hingc (Cambridge, Mass. : The MIT Ress.

1997). 21627. Bouliée goes even hirtber and claims tbat if an architact &votes too much cime io practice,

be runs the risk of abandonhg tbe more noble. speculative part of his art: "Dira-ta qu'il serait convenable

que pour suivre des etudes de pur spkulation, l'architecte abandonnât des affaires lucratives? Heias!"

Bou11ée. Archiuerwc. 54.

rationally to avoid wastefbl expenses.3 The question of expression became incidentai, subordinareci to the primary utilitarian concems. In a very revealïng plate in his Précis des Leçons d'architecture (1 802). Durand proposes a more "rational" alternative to the Church of Ste. Genevieve, the French Pantheon in Paris built by Germain Soufflot after 1764. (See Figwe 1.) The plate compares the mciforrn plan of the actual Pantheon to Durand's own alternative project for a circuiar buiIding. His project might have created an effect of vastness and magnificence, but Durand's primary concem was that his rational plan was more efficient in ternis of the relationship between tbe use of walls and the surface area covered by the building. By rejecting the symboiic role of architecture and focusing on its usefulness and functionaiity, he reframed the discipline as an applied science, and initiated an important paradigm shift in architectural theory. Since the nineteenth centwy, mainstream architecture was indeed regarded as a functionai discipline, less concemed with questions of expression than its utilitarian de. Coincidentally. the notion of program, previously considered an important constituent of architectural rneaning. articulateci through discursive language as social conventions. or through poetic language as fiction, was reduced to its more pragmatic requirements.

Architects

ceased to be concerned with the expressive nature of their work because they believed that expression would be conveyed automatically by "solving" the functional requirements of the program.

The search for

meaning in the notion of character was reduced to a syntactic inieiest in typology. In the closing decades of the twentieth century, architectural thwry has exceeded this discussion of functionaüsm.

With complex structural foms king calculated by

cornputers, and with innovative building materials king generated by science, any

3~or more on Dursnd, see AlbeM Pérez-Gdrnez. Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science

(Cambridge, Mas.: Tbe MIT Ress, 1983). chap. 9. Figure 1: Cornparison of the French Pantheon in Paris designed by G. Sodfîot. and Durand's "rationaln alternative project. Fmm Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Prtfcis des Leçons d 'architechcre ( 1802) [reprint 19t31J. a imaginable - or unimaginable - shape can now be built. This extreme freedom to manipulate the fonn of Our bufit environment has led to riecent architecturai suucairies based on organic evolutionay growth and proliferation In this spirit, Greg Lynn has proposed a "blob architecture" whose phary objective appears to be unexpected shapes: the dRam of absolute forma1 innovation in archiiecnire.4 He claims that this mode1 of organic growth produces buildings that are more functionai than any rational building. He denies, however. bat their appearance should be interpreted as a forma1 expression. (See Figure

2.) In other words, any parallel between the formal generation of architecture and the

program it is meant to enclose ïs purely coincidental. Even though the relevance and application of functionalism continue to be questioned in the late twentieth century. a shared mode of architectural expression is stül needed, because if architecture's communicative role in language is relinquished, it may also lose its right to "perform" in the public domain.5

4~e writes, "Tbe design pmcess of this poject [Cardiff Bay Open House] . . . could be cbaracterized by an

alternative conception of repetition Lbat can be broadly understood as evolutionary, flexible and proliferating. Abd Nortù Whitehead has desati evolution as the 'mative advance into aovelty.' . . .

(Nlovelty, ratber than king sane exainsic effect, cm be conceived as the catalyst of new and enfotceable

organizatioos rhat proceed from tbe interaction between fkIy diaerentiating systems and their incoqmation

and exploitation of extemai cmsmhts. NoveIty and order are rehted in an autocatalytic ratber than biirary

mariner as tûey are simuiianeously initiated hm a constellation of vicissitudes." bttp:l/www.basili&com

1RErenw-d~mvlty,symmtry-5761mil (August 1999)

ha proiogue to Z%e Humun Coditioyr Hannab Anmit explains the importance of language for finding

meaning in tbe worid, and tbe üwbling disconneaion between scientific language and politics in the

cootemporary caatext. "Wlwever the relevance of spaecb is at stalre." sbe writes, "mattess beoome political

by defith, fa speecb is what makes man a political being." Scientists. and by extension architects, no

longer seem to see or anticipate tbe political implications of rheir work because "they move in a world

wbere speecb has lost irs power." Hannah Arendt. The Humon Condition (Chicago, London: The

Uaivaity of Chicago Rss. 1958). 34.

Figure 2: Cornpetition enûy for the Cardin Bay Opera House. by Greg Lynn (1994) [Internet]. Over two decades ago, Richard Sennett proclairneci the death of public space in bis eloquent study, The Fail of Public Man. Sennett stressed that architecture had to involve the public realm in order to be more than just a self-nefetenrial game. In his view, the growing importance of the private domain and the dismantling of conventions after the Aacw Régime led to social imbalance, a los of equüibrium between the public and pnvate realms, and the colapse of what he Falls the coherent culture of the Enlightenment6 Public life has been subjected to radical changes during the past two centuries, and Semen clearly stated the issues and consequences of capitalisrn and the industrial revolution. More recentiy, the rapid spread of technological communication. such as the intemet, has transfomed the private celi of the home or the inâividual office into a direct point of access for inter-personal - some may claim public - communication. Every day, fewer meeting places are needed. However, a longing for potential spaces of public interaction has led sociologists, urban planners, architects and even developers to demand and create surrogate public places.

Hybrids

have been created by crossing models of public places from previous eras with twentieth-centwy programs, witb shopping malls and office towers developing neutral meeting spaces, and residual urban spaces becoming deserted public parks. At kt, these public places provide circulation space for pedestrians. "Public space" is no longer a sigrifkant space appropriated by everyone; it has become a residud space that belongs to no one. Sennett describes the problem of modem cities in terms of loss: the lost public dimension of human life, the lost social conventions among members of a community that had permitteâ spontaneous interaction, and the lost role of man as a public actor. Although Sennett is nght in saying that the modem city is impoverished in iu public life when compared to the society of the Ancien Regime. the contemporary solution cannot be to

6Ricbard Semai, ï%e Fa12 of Public Mm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Ress. 1974). 28.

adopt a nostalgie attitude toward a past en. Nevertheless. it is my view that alternatives may be foamd by canefiilly examining the tbeoretical respoases to this changing context that were provideci by arcbiects such as Le Camus de Mézi&res. This context involves great transformations in the reaîm of intimacy, carefuiiy analyzed by Hannah Arendt in The

Hw~n Condition (1958).7

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