page_title: Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans
section_title: The first plan
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans / Claude Nicolas Ledoux / The first plan
context_page_description: The Saline Royale is a historical building at Arc-et-Senans in the department of Doubs, eastern France. It is next to the Forest of Chaux and about 35 kilometers from Besançon. The architect was Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, a prominent Parisian architect of the time. The work is an important example of an early Enlightenment project in which the architect based his design on a philosophy that favored arranging buildings according to a rational geometry and a hierarchical relation between the parts of the project.
  The Institut Claude-Nicolas Ledoux has taken on the task of conservator and is managing the site as a monument. UNESCO added the "Salines Royales" to its List of World Heritage Sites in 1982.
  Today, the site is mostly open to the public. It includes, in the building the coopers used, displays by the Ledoux Museum of other futuristic projects that were never built. Also, the salt production buildings house temporary exhibitions.
  The train line from Besançon to Bourg-en-Bresse passes just next to the salt works. The station for Arc-et-Senans is only a few dozen meters from the site.
context_section_description: Without even having received any request from the king, Ledoux decided to design a saltworks.  The project was something of an abstraction as he had no site in mind. He presented the resulting project in April 1774 to Louis XV.
  Unconstrained by any practical considerations, the project was ambitious, innovative, and a break with traditional approaches. What Ledoux did was to impose a rigid geometry on the overall design. The buildings were placed around the edges of an immense square, and linked to each other by porticoes; no building stood in isolation. To speed connections between buildings, Ledoux introduced covered arcades that linked the midpoints of adjacent sides, forming a square within the square. Columns abounded. The buildings themselves were replete with them, and 144 Doric columns supported the covered arcades.
  Ledoux's plan envisaged that the central square courtyard would be where the factory would keep its firewood. At each corner of the square, and at the midpoints of each side stood two-story, square buildings that would house the various parts of the operation. In front were the quarters for the guards, a chapel, and a bakery. On the sides were workshops for the coopers and other workmen. At the base was the factory itself. Gardens were to surround the site to provide the workers with a supplement to their income. Lastly, a wall would surround the entire complex to protect it from theft.
  It was the project's grandiose vision that blocked its realization. No industrial building of the period was equally imposing. The king rejected the project. He particularly objected to the extensive use of columns, features that he felt were more appropriate for churches and palaces. He also objected to the chapel being relegated to a corner.
  In his own critical review of the project, Ledoux stated that he had put too much weight on the conventions of a factory to the neglect of symbolic aspects. The result was a flat, uniform design based on bi-lateral symmetry, rather than one that would have a marked center of gravity. The design also recalled the traditional communal buildings of the time such as convents, monasteries, hospitals, large farms, and the like. Furthermore, since ancient times, architects had recognized that plans such as Ledoux's were vulnerable to the spread of fire and not very hygienic, with throughout the day some part of the site being in the shade. Lastly, critics pointed out that the project did not take into account the geographic or geological constraints.
caption: In 1775, the king rejected Ledoux's first design plan
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