![Nantes 2008 PD 36](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Nantes_2008_PD_36.JPG)
Mathurin Crucy (2 February 1749, Nantes - 7 November 1826, Chantenay, near Nantes) was a French architect and urban planner, who conceived a major Neo-Classical architectural programme for
Nantes
Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...
.
Life
The son of a lumber contractor, Crucy trained as an architect in Nantes in the studio of Jean-Baptiste Ceineray. With his help, he went to Paris and met the architect
Étienne-Louis Boullée
Étienne-Louis Boullée (12 February 17284 February 1799) was a visionary French neoclassical architect whose work greatly influenced contemporary architects.
Life
Born in Paris, he studied under Jacques-François Blondel, Germain Boff ...
and the painter
Joseph-Marie Vien
Joseph-Marie Vien (sometimes anglicised as Joseph-Mary Wien; 18 June 1716 – 27 March 1809) was a French painter. He was the last holder of the post of Premier peintre du Roi, serving from 1789 to 1791.
Biography
He was born in Montpellier ...
. These contacts helped him to join the Académie royale d'architecture in 1771. He won the first Academy Award in 1774, later called the
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...
, for his plan for a public spa-water bath. This allowed him to make a living in Italy for four years. At the Villa Medici, he met the painter
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
. He became deeply influenced by the villas of the architect
Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio ( ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of th ...
.
He returned to Nantes in 1779 and succeeded Ceineray as overseer of the town architecture in 1780. He was responsible for the management of large urban developments underway at the time, including the transformation of the districts of Graslin and la Bourse. He originated the planning of Place Graslin and designed the
Théâtre Graslin
Théâtre Graslin is a theatre and opera house in the city of Nantes, France, built in a new district of the city in the late 18th century by the local architect Mathurin Crucy, and named after the owner of the land, Jean-Louis Graslin. Constructed ...
and
Palais de la Bourse
Palais () may refer to:
* Dance hall, popularly a ''palais de danse'', in the 1950s and 1960s in the UK
* ''Palais'', French for palace
**Grand Palais, the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées
**Petit Palais, an art museum in Paris
* Palais River in t ...
.
During the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
he sought to protect important monuments from destruction by revolutionary extremists. He saved the
tomb of Duke Francis II of Brittany and Marguerite de Foix during the destruction of the Carmelite church in the ducal parish in 1793. The tomb was later re-erected in
Nantes cathedral
Nantes Cathedral, or the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul of Nantes (french: Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Nantes), is a Roman Catholic Gothic cathedral located in Nantes, Pays de la Loire, France. Construction began in 1434, on t ...
.
He resigned in 1800 to devote himself to the family business, a naval shipyard, with his brother Louis. The business was growing because of the wars with England. His company, based in
Basse-Indre, built frigates for the Napoleonic fleet, but it went bankrupt in 1808 and he completely abandoned this activity in 1810. He was appointed architect of the department of
Loire-inférieure
Loire-Atlantique (; br, Liger-Atlantel; before 1957: ''Loire-Inférieure'', br, Liger-Izelañ, link=no) is a department in Pays de la Loire on the west coast of France, named after the river Loire and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a population of ...
in 1809.
![GarenneLemot - maisonjardinier](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/GarenneLemot_-_maisonjardinier.jpg)
In 1808, he was asked by the sculptor
François-Frédéric Lemot
François-Frédéric Lemot (4 November 1772 — 6 May 1827) was a French sculptor, working in the Neoclassical style.
Biography
Lemot was born at Lyon. Having briefly studied architecture at the Academy of Besançon, then having made his way to P ...
(1771–1827) to create a landscaped area of Italian inspiration in the town of
Gétigné
Gétigné (; Gallo: ''Jestniyaé'', br, Yestinieg) is a commune in the department of Loire-Atlantique in the Pays de la Loire region in western France.
It was part of the Brittany-Poitou Marches, and is located in the Nantes vineyard. It forms ...
(near Clisson). It is currently known as ''Domaine de la Garenne Lemot''. He started building the park and built the ''maison du jardinier de la Garenne'' between 1811 and 1815, one of the masterpieces of architecture in the rustic Italian style in France. He quarrelled with Lemot in 1821 and never finished the project, which was left to his successor, Pierre-Louis Van Cleemputte.
His niece, Justine Crucy, married Louis-Prudent Douillard, an architect, in 1821 and in 1823, another niece, Zita Crucy, married Louis-Prudent's brother Constant, an architect too, who designed some of the hospitals of Loire-inférieure, notably ''St. Jacques General Hospital'' in Nantes, and the ''place du Sanitat'' in the same town. Justine and Zita were daughters to
Louis Crucy (born 1756), Mathurin's brother. On the 4 October 1785, in the Saint Similien church in Nantes, Louis and Mathurin Crucy had themselves married sisters Le Roux, Françoise and Marie Françoise.
Main projects
![Nantes 2008 PD 39](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Nantes_2008_PD_39.JPG)
* 1780–88 :
Place Graslin
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road name
** Often ...
* 1783 : HĂ´tel de Montaudoin or HĂ´tel des Colonnes, on what is now
Place du Maréchal-Foch
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road name
** Often ...
* 1784–88 :
Théâtre Graslin
Théâtre Graslin is a theatre and opera house in the city of Nantes, France, built in a new district of the city in the late 18th century by the local architect Mathurin Crucy, and named after the owner of the land, Jean-Louis Graslin. Constructed ...
at Nantes
* 1787 :
Place Royale (destroyed in the Second World War and rebuilt more grandly on the same model)
* 1787 :
Cathédrale de Rennes (built after the old building was demolished as it threatened to fall down)
* 1789 : Halle aux blés (demolished 1882)
* 1791 :
Cours Cambronne
Cours is a French word that can refer to:
* Cours (TV production), a unit of production in Japanese TV programs equivalent to approximately 11 to 13 episodes
Places
Cours is the name or part of the name of several communes in France:
* Cours, Rh ...
(plans, completed during the 19th century)
* 1802 : Public baths (demolished) and west quays of the
ĂŽle Feydeau
* 1807 : Halle aux poissons (demolished 1851)
* 1808 :
Bourse du commerce, Nantes
* 1811–15 : Maison du jardinier du domaine de la Garenne Lemot, communes of
Gétigné
Gétigné (; Gallo: ''Jestniyaé'', br, Yestinieg) is a commune in the department of Loire-Atlantique in the Pays de la Loire region in western France.
It was part of the Brittany-Poitou Marches, and is located in the Nantes vineyard. It forms ...
and
Cugand
Cugand () is a commune in the Vendée department in the Pays de la Loire region in western France. It is part of the urban unit of Clisson.Clisson
Clisson (; br, Klison), is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in the Pays de la Loire region in western France.
It is situated at the confluence of the Sèvre Nantaise and the Moine southeast of Nantes.
The town and the celebrat ...
[Now property of the Conseil général of ]Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique (; br, Liger-Atlantel; before 1957: ''Loire-Inférieure'', br, Liger-Izelañ, link=no) is a department in Pays de la Loire on the west coast of France, named after the river Loire and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a population o ...
, se
website
/ref>
* 1818–23 : Garden structures in the Garenne-Lemot (temple of friendship, column, obelisk)
* 1816 : start of works on the house of the master of the Garenne-Lemot, to plans by Crucy (abandoned in 1823)
Notes
Bibliography
* Claude Cosneau, ''Mathurin Crucy, 1749–1826, architecte nantais néoclassique'', exhibition catalogue, Musée Dobrée, Nantes, 1986, 154 p
Compte-rendu in ''Revue de l'art'' n°74, 1986
* Alain Delaval, ''Le Théâtre Graslin à Nantes'', ed. Joca Seria
* E. Maillard, ''L'Art à Nantes au XIXe siècle'', ed. Vier, 1891, pp. 182–183
* Daniel Rabreau, "Mathurin Crucy", ''Dictionnaire des architectes'', ed. Encyclopaedia Universalis - Albin Michel, 1999, pp. 193–194
See also
* Théâtre Graslin
Théâtre Graslin is a theatre and opera house in the city of Nantes, France, built in a new district of the city in the late 18th century by the local architect Mathurin Crucy, and named after the owner of the land, Jean-Louis Graslin. Constructed ...
* Palais de la Bourse
Palais () may refer to:
* Dance hall, popularly a ''palais de danse'', in the 1950s and 1960s in the UK
* ''Palais'', French for palace
**Grand Palais, the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées
**Petit Palais, an art museum in Paris
* Palais River in t ...
External links
Page for Crucy on Structurae
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crucy
1749 births
1826 deaths
Architects from Nantes
18th-century French architects
19th-century French architects
French urban planners
Architects of cathedrals
Theatre architects
French neoclassical architects
Prix de Rome for architecture