François-Joseph Bélanger

François -Joseph Bélanger ( born April 12, 1744 Paris, † May 1, 1818 ) was a French architect and garden designer.

Earlier in his career

He began his career in 1767 by the order of King Louis XVI it. ephemeral trifles to its dispersal conceived. In 1777 he received the office of the first architects of the Count of Artois. The title of Count of Artois was the brother of the king held ( six years after the death Bélangers as Charles X also became King of France ). For this he put 1777 in the Bois de Boulogne in only 64 days, the Parc de Bagatelle, and therein fully equipped and furnished castle Bagatelle together with outbuildings, gardens, caves, streams and flower beds. This he achieved some notoriety among his contemporaries. He also worked on the decoration of the castle Maison- Laffitte.

For the banker Jean -Joseph de Laborde, he worked at the park of the castle Méréville. In 1786 he was the role of the chief architects of this work, however, was dismissed. In particular, financial reasons were given: Bélanger said to have had the habit to make the expenditure, without charge, which was not acceptable to the educated in accounting banker. Although Bélanger was replaced by Hubert Robert, he remained for the completion of construction of the temple rond de la piété branch.

During the French Revolution, he was imprisoned in the prison of Saint- Lazare.

Works

In 1811, he reconstructed the dome of the Paris corn exchange ( Halle au blé ), today Bourse de Commerce ( Resale ). The built in 1783 by the carpenter André- Jacob Roubo cantilevered wooden dome over the inner courtyard of the building was burned down in 1802. Bélanger and François Brunet engineer created a new 40 meters wide spanning dome with an intricate network of cast iron ribs and circular purlins. The dome is one of the pioneering achievements of the epoch from 1790 until 1870.

In 1813 he applied for the succession of Alexandre -Théodore Brongniart for the work at the Palais Brongniart, but did not get the job.

François -Joseph Bélanger designed numerous residences for the aristocracy and Parisian world of finance, was also responsible for the interior decoration of the Hôtel Baudart de Saint- James at 12 Place Vendôme and exerted a great influence on the design of the gardens of his era. He also designed some furniture, such as the luxurious console in blue marble, commissioned by Louise -Jeanne de Durfort, Duchess of Mazarin, which can be admired at the Frick Collection in New York.

Since about 1780 was trained in the studio Bélangers Joseph Ramee, a later internationally active architect and landscape designer who has made remarkable buildings and installations created especially in the Hamburg area.