The Architecture of Percier and Fontaine and the Struggle for Sovereignty in Revolutionary France

This book explores how Percier and Fontaine's desire to build structures of permanence and their inadvertent reliance upon temporary architectural forms shaped a new awareness of time, memory, and modern political identity in France.

As the official architects of Napoleon, Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine (1762-1853) designed interiors that responded to the radical ideologies and collective forms of destruction that took place during the French Revolution. The architects visualized new forms of imperial sovereignty by inverting the symbols of monarchy and revolution, constructing meeting rooms resembling military encampments and gilded thrones that replaced the Bourbon lily with Napoleonic bees. Yet in the wake of political struggle, each foundation stone that the architects laid for the new imperial regime was accompanied by an awareness of the contingent nature of sovereign power. Contributing fresh perspectives on the architecture, decorative arts, and visual culture of revolutionary France, this book explores how Percier and Fontaine's desire to build structures of permanence and their inadvertent reliance upon temporary architectural forms shaped a new awareness of time, memory, and modern political identity in France.

Autorentext

Iris Moon is a visiting assistant professor in the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute, New York. She specializes in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European art, architecture, and the decorative arts.

Klappentext

This book explores how Percier and Fontaine's desire to build structures of permanence and their inadvertent reliance upon temporary architectural forms shaped a new awareness of time, memory, and modern political identity in France.

Inhalt

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Finding Revolutionary Architecture in the Decorative Arts

1. Visionary Friendship at the End of the Ancien Régime
   Clean Sheets and Water Magic

   Architects in Training

   Roman Fever

   Solo Missions

   An Etruscan Friendship

2. Propulsion and Residue: Constructing the Revolutionary Interior
   Rome à Rebours

   Staging Antiquity and Austerity

   Revolutionary Rearrangements

   Seek, Record, Destroy

   The Eternal Return of Luxury

3. The Recueil de décorations intérieures: Furnishing a New Order
   Paper Studios

   Furnishing Techniques

   Strategies of Redaction

   Consuming Desires

   Writing Against Fashion

   Between the Lines

   Empire Styles

4. The Platinum Cabinet: Luxury in Times of Uncertainty Pastoral Pastimes

   Incorruptible Precision

   Fast Times in Consulate Paris

   Haunting Season

5. Tent and Throne: Architecture in a State of Emergency

   Après Coup

   Fantasies of the Ideal Villa

   A Permanent Work in Progress

   Little Pleasures

   The Moving Bivouac

   Political Theology

   Divorcing the Past Coda: Revolutionary Atonement