The Architect: Portraits and Photos

From small Egyptian sculptures of Imhotep the builder to black and white photographs of Le Corbusier with his round glasses, history is punctuated with representations of well-known and little-known architects.

From the solemnity of Hyacinthe Rigaud's Robert de Cotte, Philippe de Champaigne's Jacques Lermercier or Louis Van Loo's Germain Soufflot, these portraits became more intimate in the 19^th century with painters such as Gros, Gérôme and Ingres, and later with the sculptures of Carpeaux, Bourdelle and Orloff.

Photography by artists such as Nadar, Doisneau or Lucien Hervé allows us to savor the singular look of the architect as much as it allows us to understand the work of the studio or to account for its relationships with sponsors and power. From the second half of the 20^th century, Tony Garnier, and later Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry, became real stars: “starchitects”. Present on the covers of mainstream magazines, they are transformed into effigies that are reproduced on bank notes as well as on vouchers and stamps and hold a special place in literature and films such as Twelve Angry Men (Henry Fonda), Carnaval (Fernandel) or Asterix and Cleopatra (Djamel Debbouze), cartoons such as The Simpsons, or children's games, from Playmobil to Barbie.

The bringing together of these paintings, sculptures, photographs, tools, comics, games and film extracts creates an exceptional kaleidoscopic portrait celebrating the multiple facets of the architect.

• 24 x 28.8 cm
• 288 pages
• 320 illustrations
• Hardcover
• ISBN: 978-2-37666-0026

Text in French only

EMMANUEL BRÉON (dir.) est conservateur en chef de la Galerie des peintures murales et des vitraux, musée des Monuments français/Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine. Ancien directeur du musée des années 30 à Boulogne et de l’Orangerie à Paris, président d’Art déco de France, Emmanuel Bréon a été le commissaire de nombreuses expositions, dont 1925, Quand l’Art déco séduit le monde (2013), Les Enfants modèle (2010), Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann (2004).

Préface de Guy Amsellem

Textes de Laurent Baridon, Victor Bréon, Hubert Cavaniol, Isabelle Conte, Maurice Culot, Flavia Irollo, Jean-Marc Irollo, Guy Lambert, Aude Mathé, Bénédicte Mayer, William Pesson, Emmanuelle Polle, Francis Rambert, Renaud Richebé, Philippe Rivoirard, Georges Vigne.