Architecture in its relations to art, customs and legislation
By Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806). Excerpt from the book 'Architectural Theory'
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Ledoux exemplifies this especially in his project for the salt-producing town of Chaux in the French Jura. The major part of the project, the salt factories and the workers' houses, was realized between 1774 and 1779. But in the treatise Chaux becomes the example idea of the complex ideal town. The individual occupational groups should live in or use monuments that visually express the activities in which they are involved. And so the hoop-makers, so vital for the manufacture of barrels, should be accommodated in enormous houses shaped like wheels. The communal house of the "Pacifère", the peacemaker, was shielded by fasces, symbolizing unity. In the case of the house of the river inspector, the river was simply diverted through the house. It was not so easy to find a symbolic form for the school. There was to be a chapel in the middle of the cross-shaped building, enabling the individual subjects taught in the arms of the cross to be directed towards a common, ideal goal. Moreover from here it was possible to keep a careful watch over all the pupils. Of particular curiosity was the plan for an enormous brothel in the shape of a gigantic phallus. Yet here again the educational aspect was decisive, since visitors to the building were not meant to satisfy their carnal desires, but rather attain moral maturity by recognizing the repulsiveness of the activities taking place there.
This system no longer provides for the demonstration of social status by the orders of columns. Ledoux prefers to use for the most part original orders, taken directly from nature as it were, like the Doric, in order to create a sense of the sublime in the city. To this end, the house belonging to the director of salt production has a massive entrance hall in which the column shafts were interrupted by thick square slabs at regular intervals, as a sort of embossing. Otherwise architecture that embraces the structure of society as a whole does not permit any ornamental accessories. Even the elaborate carved foliage of the Corinthian order is useless, indeed damaging to the economy.
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Ledoux exemplifies this especially in his project for the salt-producing town of Chaux in the French Jura. The major part of the project, the salt factories and the workers' houses, was realized between 1774 and 1779. But in the treatise Chaux becomes the example idea of the complex ideal town. The individual occupational groups should live in or use monuments that visually express the activities in which they are involved. And so the hoop-makers, so vital for the manufacture of barrels, should be accommodated in enormous houses shaped like wheels. The communal house of the "Pacifère", the peacemaker, was shielded by fasces, symbolizing unity. In the case of the house of the river inspector, the river was simply diverted through the house. It was not so easy to find a symbolic form for the school. There was to be a chapel in the middle of the cross-shaped building, enabling the individual subjects taught in the arms of the cross to be directed towards a common, ideal goal. Moreover from here it was possible to keep a careful watch over all the pupils. Of particular curiosity was the plan for an enormous brothel in the shape of a gigantic phallus. Yet here again the educational aspect was decisive, since visitors to the building were not meant to satisfy their carnal desires, but rather attain moral maturity by recognizing the repulsiveness of the activities taking place there.
This system no longer provides for the demonstration of social status by the orders of columns. Ledoux prefers to use for the most part original orders, taken directly from nature as it were, like the Doric, in order to create a sense of the sublime in the city. To this end, the house belonging to the director of salt production has a massive entrance hall in which the column shafts were interrupted by thick square slabs at regular intervals, as a sort of embossing. Otherwise architecture that embraces the structure of society as a whole does not permit any ornamental accessories. Even the elaborate carved foliage of the Corinthian order is useless, indeed damaging to the economy.
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The saline town of Chaux; cross-section of the entry building and the salt refinery
