PERRET, AUGUSTE

French architect important for original contributions to civic and ecclesiastic architecture; b. Brussels, 1874;d. Paris, 1954. His use of reinforced concrete (invented by the French engineers Hennébique and Coignet in the 1890s) for an apartment at Rue Franklin, Paris (1903), was the first such use of concrete in frame construction. This and subsequent structures liberated concrete from a basement-hidden material into a frankly expressed, monolithic constructional system that bears considerable influence on contemporary building. His church of Notre-Dame du raincy (1922–23) was the first to break with the accumulated styles of the past and to house a congregation on 20th-century terms. It is built of reinforced concrete with slender concrete nave columns supporting the roof; its side walls are independent, prefabricated concrete grills filled with colored glass, so that the interior is light and open. The altar is placed nearer to the congregation than in earlier churches. After the similar church of Sainte-Thérèse de Montmagny (Seine-et-Oise, 1925–26) his work became increasingly formalistic with even classic qualities. The rigid postwar rebuilding of Le Havre is punctuated by his last work, St. Joseph's Church (1952–55), a kind of "spiritual lighthouse" that towers some 350 feet above the city.

Bibliography: a. henze and t. filthaut, Contemporary Church Art, ed. m. lavanoux, tr. c. hastings (New York 1956) 21–23. j. pichard, Modern Church Architecture, tr. e. callmann (New York 1962). b. champigneulle, Perret (Paris 1959). g. e. kidder smith, The New Architecture of Europe (Cleveland 1961) 105–106; The New Churches of Europe (New York 1964).

[g. e. kidder smith]