Pierre Lescot

Who was Pierre Lescot?

Pierre Lescot was a French architect active during the French Renaissance, "the man who was first responsible for the implantation of pure and correct classical architecture in France." He was born in Paris.

King Francis I of France took him into his service, and appointed him architect in charge of the building projects at the Palais du Louvre, which transformed the old château into the palace that we know. A project put forward by the Italian architect and theorist Sebastiano Serlio was set aside in favor of Lescot's, in which three sides of a square court were to be enclosed by splendid apartments, while on the east, facing the city as it then was, the fourth side was probably destined to be lightly closed with an arcade. Festive corner pavilions of commanding height and adorned by pillars and statues were to replace the medieval towers. Elsewhere in the Louvre, little was actually achieved beyond razing some of the old feudal structure.

Though Lescot was confirmed in his position after the king's death by his heir Henry II, and though he worked at the Louvre project until his death, only the west side and part of the south side were completed, comprising the present southwest wing of the Cour Carré, the Aile Lescot, or "Lescot Wing". Even so, the building was executed from 1546 to 1551 set the mold of French classicism: it is of two stories with an attic richly embellished with Jean Goujon's panels of bas-reliefs; it is crowned by a sloping roof, a traditional feature of French building and practical in a rainy climate. The deeply recessed arch-headed windows of the ground story give the impression of an arcade, while the projecting central and end pavilions bear small round oeil de boeuf windows above them. In the second storey slender fluted pilasters separate the windows, which alternate delicate triangular and arched pediments. Goujon's noble sculpture and architectural ornaments are cleverly subordinated to the construction, but the surviving groundfloor Salle des Caryatides is named for Goujon's four caryatid figures that support the musicians' gallery. Of Lescot's constructions at the Louvre there also remain the Salle des Gardes and the Henry II staircase.