The Architecture of the French Enlightenment - Assignment Example

France incorporated Italian Renaissance forms slowly during the sixteenth century. Claude Perrault asserted the conventionalism of this classicism and managed to challenge the authoritarian justifications that were entrenched in this classicizing movement. One member of the academy and a medical scientist, Perrault, held a commission of producing a modern Vitruvius. Perrault did not find sufficient agreement between the descriptions of Vitruvius regarding orders, the various distinct versions of the orders in the ancient buildings, and the variant standards of the Italian treaties.

He intended his rational enterprise to support classicism. While most extravagant Baroque architecture took place elsewhere during the eighteenth century, France only experienced an increasing range of manners in classicism. Laugier stated that the column must stand vertically because this is its strongest position. While there were those who built primitive huts in the pleasure gardens during the late eighteenth century, such literal imitation of the hut was not Laugier’s purpose. Laugier considered the hut as a device for teaching the principles of architecture.

Laugier seemed to have been addressing Perrault’s conventionalism. Semper’s major work, “Der Stil” also endeavored to demonstrate the representations and conventions that were interposed between artifacts and the primitive making of use-types.