Léon Vaudoyer

by Barry Bergdoll

Since the 1975 exhibition of student drawings from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at the Museum of Modern Art, a fundamental reevaluation of the French academic tradition in architecture has been under way. Long seen as a recalcitrant opponent of modernity, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was, in fact, the seedbed of some of the principle attitudes and themes of modernist debates. Chief among these was the notion that architecture must reflect its own place in history and take part in the ongoing quest for progress. This challenge to the neoclassical orthodoxy of the French Academy in the early nineteenth century was formulated in large part by Leon Vaudoyer (1803-72). Together with Felix Duban, Henri Labrouste, and Louis Duc, Vaudoyer reassessed the relevance of historical architecture to contemporary design. His vision of historicism emerged against a heightened awareness of the political and cultural forces shaping the urbanization and industrialization of the French landscape. At the forefront