Claude Perrault

Who was Claude Perrault?

Claude Perrault is best known as the architect of the east wing of the Louvre Palace in Paris. He also achieved success as a physician and anatomist, and as an author, who wrote treatises on physics and natural history.

Perrault was born and died in Paris. Aside from his influential architecture, he became well known for his translation of the ten books of Vitruvius, the only surviving Roman work on architecture, into French, written at the instigation of Colbert, and published, with Perrault's annotations, in 1673. His treatise on the five classical orders of architecture followed in 1683. As physician and natural philosopher with a medical degree from the University of Paris, Perrault became one of the first members of the French Academy of Sciences when it was founded in 1666.

In the competition for the construction of a new wing for the Louvre he triumphed over all rivals, even Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who had traveled from Italy expressly for the purpose. This work claimed his attention from 1665 to 1680, and established his reputation. Perrault's Colonnade overlooking the Quai du Louvre became widely celebrated. The simple character of the ground floor basement sets off the paired Corinthian columns, modeled strictly according to Vitruvius, against a shadowed void, with pavilions at the ends. Little that could be called Baroque can be identified in its cool classicism that looks back to the 16th century. The façade, divided in five parts, is a typical solution of the French classicism.