Vaudoyer, Léon

Vaudoyer, Léon (1803–72). French architect, the son of A. -L. -T. Vaudoyer. With Duban, Duc, and Labrouste he became a leading light in architectural circles in the 1830s, and carried out major work at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris (1845–72), in which he synthesized Graeco-Roman and Renaissance elements anf restored much of the surviving Gothic fabric (the conversion of St-Martin-des-Champs into the Conservatoire had been started by his father, and was completed by Gabriel-Auguste Ancelet (1829–95) ). that the Greek Classical ideal was central to all subsequent architecture in Southern Europe, he attempted in his own designs to demonstrate a further transformation for modern times, as in his Cathedral-Church of Ste-Marie-Majeure, Marseilles (1855–72), the overall stylistic effect of which is that of a Byzantine Romanesque basilica with polychrome strips recalling the Duomo at Siena (the building was completed by Jacques-Henry Espérandieu (1829–74), Henri-Antoine Révoil (1820–1900), and Vaudoyer's son, Alfred Lambert Vaudoyer (1846–1917) ). He also designed the elegant Greek Doric monument of Général Maximilien-Sébastien Foy (1775–1825), Père-Lachaise Cemetery (1825–32), and the Vaudoyer mausoleum, Montparnasse Cemetery (1846), both in Paris. He published several important works including perceptive articles on Ledoux in the 1850s in which he referred to architecture parlante (architecture expressive of its purpose).

Bibliography

Bergdoll (1994a);
Drexler (ed.) (1977);
Hitchcock (1977);
Middleton & and Watkin (1987);
Placzek (ed.) (1982)
Jane Turner (1996);
van Zanten (1982)