page_title: Claude Nicolas Ledoux
section_title: Difficult times
hierarchical_section_title: Claude Nicolas Ledoux / Later works / Difficult times
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: At the same time, work on the law courts of Aix-en-Provence was suspended, and Ledoux was accused of embroiling the Treasury in ill-considered expenditure. When the Revolution broke out, his rich clientele emigrated or perished under the guillotine. He saw his career and his projects stopped while at the same time the first blows of the pickaxe began to ring on the already obsolete wall of the fermiers généraux. As of June 1790, the Ferme générale had been able to install its employees in the buildings by Ledoux, but the octroi (granting) was abolished in May 1791, which rendered the facilities useless. A symbol of fiscal oppression, Ledoux, who had amassed a handsome fortune, was arrested and thrown in La Force Prison.
  He still made a project for a school of agriculture for the duc de Duras, his companion in captivity. Perhaps the intervention of the painter Jacques-Louis David, son-in-law of the entrepreneur Pécoul, and considerably enriched in the collection of the octrois, helped him avoid the guillotine. But he lost his favourite daughter whilst the other brought a lawsuit against him.
  Ledoux, who was eventually released, ceased building and attempted to prepare the publication of his complete œuvre. Since 1773, he had started to engrave his constructions and his projects but, because of the evolution of his style, he did not cease retouching his drawings, and the engravers constantly had to redo their boards. Ledoux evolved towards an architecture always more detailed and colossal, with vast walls that were increasingly smooth, and with increasingly rare openings. The differences between a drawing of the Pavillon de Louveciennes as it first was, made by the British architect Sir William Chambers and the engraving that was published in 1804 illustrate this process.
  During his imprisonment, Ledoux had started to write a text to accompany the engravings. Only the first volume appeared during his lifetime, in 1804, under the title L'Architecture considérée sous le rapport de l'art, des mœurs et de la législation(Architecture considered under the relation of art and legislation). It presented the theatre of Besançon, the saltworks of Arc-and-Senans and the town of Chaux.
  He died in Paris in 1806.
caption: Portrait of Ledoux with his daughter. 1782 - Musée Carnavalet.
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