He began his career as an architect in 1789, his first work being the "Maison de Villamont", in Lausanne, a house built for himself between 1791-1793. In 1798, with the ascension of the Helvetic Republic, he was employed by the new government and entrusted with the maintenance of public buildings. After the Act of Mediation and the collapse of the republic in 1803, the Swiss Confederacy was restored but with new sovereign cantons, among them Vaud, formerly ruled as subject lands before the French invasion.