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Jean Nicolas Louis Durand 's Theory Of Architecture

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• Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (Paris, 18 September 1760 – Thiais, 31 December 1834) It’s more than worth to mention and Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, who was a French author, teacher and architect. He was an important figure in Neoclassicism, and his system of design using simple modular elements anticipated modern industrialized building components. Having spent periods working for the Boullee and the civil engineer Jean-Rodolphe Perronet, in 1795 he became a Professor of Architecture at the École Polytechnique. Durand is known for a rationalization and systemization of architecture which was governed by two inherent principles: (1) convenience, or efficiency of functional relationships and (2) economy. His attitudes toward efficiency and economy were directly influenced by Napoleon 's distrust of architects. He served as an engineer in Napoleon 's army. Durand could only understand nature through a scientific quantification which substituted mathematical logic for metaphor as a model of thought. Since the Enlightenment, as a corollary to the work being done by scientists and philosophers, architectural theorists endeavoured to bring architecture closer to a science by attempting to eliminate the irrational and personal in favour of a universally applicable system of principles and rules based on absolute certainties. Durand was the first to formulate a complete early statement of this idea. Image 16 Figure 4. J.N.L. Durand,

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