Pierre-François-Henri Labrouste () (11 May 1801 – 24 June 1875) was a French architect from the famous

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...

school of architecture. After a six-year stay in Rome, Labrouste established an architectural training workshop, which soon became known for rationalism. He became noted for his use of iron-frame construction and was one of the first to realize the importance of its use.

Biography

Born in Paris, Labrouste was one of five children of :fr:François-Marie-Alexandre Labrouste (in French), a lawyer and politician from Bordeaux and Anne-Dominique Gourg (1764-1851), daughter and granddaughter of cognac merchants. He entered the

Collège Sainte-Barbe The Collège Sainte-Barbe is a former college in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. The Collège Sainte-Barbe was founded in 1460 on Montagne Sainte-Geneviève ( Latin Quarter, Paris) by Pierre Antoine Victor de Lanneau, teacher of religio ...

as a student in 1809. He was then admitted into the second class and the Lebas-Vaudoyer workshop in the École Royale des Beaux Arts in 1819. In 1820, he was promoted to the first class. Competing for the Grand Prix, Labrouste was awarded second place (the Palais de Justice scored first) by Guillaume-Abel Blouet in 1821. In 1823, he won the departmental prize and worked as a lieutenant-inspector (''sous-inspecteur'') for the director Étienne-Hippolyte Godde during the construction of the Saint-Pierre-du-Gros-Caillou parish in Paris. In 1824 Labrouste won the competition with a design of a Court of Appeals (Cour de cassation). In November, he left Paris for Italy, visiting Turin, Milan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Modena, Bologna, Florence and Arezzo. In July 1835 in Paris he was present at the scene when Giuseppe Marco Fieschi attempted the assassination of King

Louis-Philippe Louis Philippe (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France. As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary War ...

using a home-made, multi-barrel gun fired from an upstairs window. Although the King only received a minor injury, 18 people were killed, including Henri's father, Alexandre Labrouste.

Stay in Rome

Receiving a pension or stipend from the French government for five years, he and the other Académie française laureates stayed in the Medici Villa in Rome. The directors of the Académie stated in correspondence in French about the laureates that, in their studies of antiquity, they "must research the laws of proportion and reduce them to formulas to be used by masters and students in Paris."Correspondance des directeurs de l’Académie de France à Rome, tome 1, p. 28 His work was the subject of "Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light," the first solo exhibition in the U.S. of his work, at The

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of th ...

in New York City. His buildings include: * Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, built between 1843 and 1850 * The Salle Labrouste, a reading room in the

Bibliothèque Nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

in the

Rue de Richelieu The Rue de Richelieu is a long street of Paris, starting in the south of the 1st arrondissement at the Comédie-Française and ending in the north of the 2nd arrondissement. For the first half of the 19th century, before Georges-Eugène Haussma ...

, Paris, and built between 1862 and 1868.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Labrouste, Henri 1801 births 1875 deaths Architects from Paris 19th-century French architects French neoclassical architects Prix de Rome for architecture École des Beaux-Arts alumni Members of the Académie des beaux-arts