François Mansart

François Mansart (actually Nicolas François Mansart, also Mansard; * January 23, 1598 in Paris, † September 23, 1666 in Paris) was a French architect and builder.

Life and work

Childhood and education

Mansart was the sixth of seven children of a royal carpenter and came from a distinguished family of architects, builders and sculptors.

When he was twelve years old, his father died; a year later, his mother married a master baker. From 1612 to 1617 he lived with his brother- Germain Gaultier, sculptor and architect city of Rennes. He then moved to his uncle Marcel Le Roy, a respected master builder and bridge builder in Toulouse, where he lived from 1618 to 1621 and for which he worked there at the Pont Neuf. Early integrated into progressively larger works, he learned his craft from the ground: architecture, stonework and Civil Engineering were still closely intertwined in the 17th century. He was a pupil of Salomon de Brosse.

First orders

Although the young Mansart was also active in church, but was more quickly and forcefully known for his distinct talent in the secular. The courtly absolutism in France contributed towards its climax and showed in architectural splendor folding demonstrative power and wealth.

Soon the young architect was famous for its ornate portals, stairs and roofs and attracted the attention of wealthy clients in coming. Members of the royal family, civil servants, ambassadors and influential nobles were his customers. As a first major commissioned work he built for the youngest brother of the King, the Duke of Orléans, the so-called wing Gaston d' Orléans in the castle of Blois in the Loire Valley. It is one of the first more significant buildings, to which the later formative for the official French style double columns were used for facade design.

Architect of the King

In 1625 he was appointed architect of the king and thus the top builders for all official building projects in centrally managed France of Louis XIII. He held this office after the death of Louis XIII. 1643 his widow, the regent Anne of Austria, and later under the young Louis XIV held, held the world of him (see story below).

Mansart joined in his style with the strict elements of its predecessor with more playful influences of the Italian Baroque. He designed and built castles and churches, and especially the famous Hôtel in Paris, large, prestigious town houses or administration building. In their majority they were later demolished or incorporated into other buildings, such as the multi- renovated Hôtel Mazarin (1645 ), now part of the French National Library. Construction activity Mansart is however well documented by an extensive collection of designs, plans and engravings. Also, as a civil engineer, he has emerged and designed, among other channels and aqueducts. His main work is considered the Maisons-Laffitte Castle and its grounds ( 1642-1651 ).

Private life and scandals

François Mansart, life unmarried and childless, was in his time one of the richest men not noble Paris and put his enormous fortune primarily in real estate and pensions. Contemporaries report of his strong sense of elegant clothes and a sophisticated lifestyle. The only surviving portrait of him shows the portrait of schmalgesichtigen, melancholy -looking man with a pronounced nose.

His elaborate lifestyle as well as rumors or not at all on its behalf by other running jobs brought him not only friends in the Parisian society to bribes, minions, despite fees paid by him. At times, the circulating written by anonymous authors called Mansarades where juicy details about the private lives of suspected homosexuals was blasphemed and craft sloppiness as miscalculations in the design, construction and spread of waste were denounced by material. Evidence which is under the highest protection builder never let himself somewhat.

How much corresponded to the rumors of the truth, it can now only be difficult to determine. Backed 's just that Mansart artistic genius, but organizationally was far less talented though he tended to accept multiple jobs at the same time - whether out of greed or out of eagerness to work is anyone's guess - and getting bogged down there. Since he was a perfectionist and never satisfied with the result of his work at the same time, the construction of each project attracted often extends over several years. The construction management for the major project of the monastery and church of Val- de - Grâce (from 1645) was taken from him because of this and passed on to a colleague.

Recognition and Aftermath

Prominent contemporaries thought despite all the scandals much of the architecture of François Mansart: For the famous fairytale collector Charles Perrault, the Château de Maisons- Laffitte belonged " with the most beautiful things we have in France." However, precisely this palace complex is not without controversy regarding the authorship, because although a partial fee settlement, but not designs or construction plans are preserved.

Voltaire praised his " artistic genius ".

Today François Mansart applies together with Louis Le Vau as a finisher of French classicism Parisian character. The cityscape of the French capital 's buildings were largely displaced by the expansive magnificent buildings and public places that build his grand-nephew and successor of Jules Hardouin -Mansart under the " Sun King" Louis XIV and had to create. The excesses of the French Revolution in the late 18th century, where it should fall many private Hôtels the nobility victim did theirs.

The him or his nephew attributed as an invention and therefore named them after they built mansard roofs, although both happy in their designs a - invented but they do not have this.

Anecdote

Went for a walk when the young King Louis XIV once on a hot summer day with not -so-young architect François Mansart in the park of the Palace of Versailles, to discuss new construction projects, the sun was burning hot on the head of the bareheaded architects. Quite contrary to the strict court etiquette handed him the Sun King, then his hat. When his courtiers asked him wonder why he did that, Ludwig replied:

Major works

• Église Sainte -Marie -des- Anges de la Visitation (1632-1634), Paris, later Temple du Marais, since 1802 Reformed Church
• Wing Gaston d'Orléans at Blois Chateau (1635-1638), Blois
• Hôtel de Toulouse (1634-1640), Paris, today Banque de France
• Castle Maisons -Laffitte (1641-1650), Maisons- Laffitte