page_title: Claude Nicolas Ledoux
section_title: The theatre of Besançon
hierarchical_section_title: Claude Nicolas Ledoux / Later works / The theatre of Besançon
context_page_description: Claude-Nicolas Ledoux was one of the earliest exponents of French Neoclassical architecture. He used his knowledge of architectural theory to design not only domestic architecture but also town planning; as a consequence of his visionary plan for the Ideal City of Chaux, he became known as a utopian. His greatest works were funded by the French monarchy and came to be perceived as symbols of the Ancien Régime rather than Utopia. The French Revolution hampered his career; much of his work was destroyed in the nineteenth century. In 1804, he published a collection of his designs under the title L'Architecture considérée sous le rapport de l'art, des mœurs et de la législation. In this book he took the opportunity of revising his earlier designs, making them more rigorously neoclassical and up to date. This revision has distorted an accurate assessment of his role in the evolution of Neoclassical architecture. His most ambitious work was the uncompleted Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, an idealistic and visionary town showing many examples of architecture parlante.
context_section_description: In 1784 Ledoux was the architect selected to design a theatre at Besançon, Franche-Comté.  The exterior of the building was designed as a severe Palladian cube, adorned only by an almost Grecian neoclassical portico of six Ionic columns.  However, if the neoclassical hints to the exterior was regarded as modern then the interior was a revolution – venues for public entertainment were rare in the French provinces, and where they did exist it was traditional that only the nobles had seating, while those of less exulted rank had stood.  Ledoux, realizing this was not only inconvenient but elitist planned the theatre at Besançon on more egalitarian lines with seating for all but in some quarters such a plan was seen as radical if not revolutionary, the aristocracy had no wish to be seated alongside commoners.  However Ledoux found an ally in the Intendant of Franche-Comté, Charles André de la Coré, an enlightened man, he consented to follow this reforming plan. Even so, it was decided that the social classes would still be segregated thus while the theatre of was the first to have a ground floor amphitheatre furnished with seats for the ordinary paying public.  Above them was a raised terrace or balcony for state employers. Directly above was the first tier of boxes reserved for the aristocracy, and above this a tier of smaller boxes occupied by the middle-class the second. Thus Ledoux achieved his ambition that the theatre could at the same time be a place of social communion and shared entertainment while still maintaining a strict hierarchy of the classes.
  The seating was not the only innovation at the theatre. With the aid of the machinist Dart de Bosco   Ledoux expanded the wings and back stage scenery apparatus, giving it greater depth than was customary, and many other modern improvements.  Besançon was the first theatre to screen the musicians in an orchestra pit.  The building was widely acclaimed on its opening in  1784  but when Ledoux submitted plans for the proposed new theatre in Marseilles but they were not accepted.
  In 1784, Ledoux  was chosen over Pierre-Adrien Pâris for the construction of the new town hall in Neufchâtel. This was followed by  the spectacular project that he conceived for the Palais de Justice and the prison of Aix-en-Provence.  This project, however, was to be beset by many difficulties. Trouble began in 1789 when construction was interrupted by the French Revolution, when only the ground floor walls had been completed
caption: Théâtre de Besançon, 1784
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