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Robert Boulee Research Paper

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6 Was a visionary French neoclassical architect whose work greatly influenced contemporary architects and is still influential today. Originally interested in painting, Boullee acquiesced to his father’s desires and took up architecture. He promoted the idea of making architecture expressive of its purpose, termed architecture parlante ("talking architecture"), which became an essential element in Beaux-Arts architectural training in the later nineteenth century. Boullee frequently employed symbolism appropriate to the use of the building. He emphasized the properties of geometric forms and their effect on the psychology of the viewer. His work was characterized by the removal of all unnecessary ornamentation, inflating geometric forms to a huge scale and repeating elements …show more content…

Boullee envisioned a grand design in his proposal for a French National Library in 1785. In Boullee’s presentation, the state would take responsibility for the collection, ordering, and dissemination of all available information to its citizens. The bibliographic utopia pictured here, though never realized, is significant as a model for monumental public structures in the 19th century, and as a source of inspiration to contemporary architects such as Maya Lin and Michael Graves. Image 5 Boulee’s French National Library, Source: http://maddisoncolvin.com/blog/2014/9/7/tienne-louis-boulle
Other projects representing Boullee style would be The Hotel Alexandre, or Hotel Soult, Paris (1763-66)and Salon for the Hotel de Tourolles. Moreover is significant to mention the eighteen-century hotel and coffeehouse, revolutionary space, and the transformation of the image of the cemetery, examination of the space of absence as embodied in commemorative architecture from Boullee and Gilly to Cret, Wright, and

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