Boullée was a French architect (1728-1799) who did not actually manage to build anything. That is, none of his monumental designs you can see above. He did build some residential buildings in Paris of which only one (supposedly) survives: L’hôtel Alexandre at n°16 rue de la Ville l’Évêque.
Boullée was a visionary. Yet, it seems that his designs were grandiose, too megalomaniac to be built, even though he lived under Louis XV and XVI. To my knowledge, only the fascist period in Italy and Germany and the Communist rule in the USSR saw such an upsurge in monumental architecture. Only under absolutist regents, monumental architecture seems to thrive. Without having built much, Boullée was largely forgotten. Only in the 20th century he was rediscovered – although also today, he remains fairly unknown among the general public. Peter Greenaway has dedicated a film to the French architect.
In The Belly of an Architect (1987) by Peter Greenaway a fictitious American architect attempts to organize an exhibition on Boullée – on the monument for the Italian king Vittorio Emmanuele II in Rome, of all places. Quite an amusing film, but not very profound.
For an excellent (online) exhibition of Boullée’s designs, visit the Bibliothèque nationale de France. For more information on Boullée, Wikipedia in English and French (for more information).
emile wohlfarht 