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Jacques Ignace Hittorff

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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JACQUES IGNACE HITTORFF (1792-1867), French architect, was born at Cologne on the 10th of August 1792. After serving an apprenticeship to a mason in his native town, he went in 1810 to Paris, and studied for some years at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a favourite pupil of Belanger, the government architect, who in 1814 appointed him his principal inspector. Succeeding Belanger as government architect in 1818, he designed many important public and private buildings in Paris and also in the south of France. From 1819 to 1830 in collaboration with le Cointe he directed the royal fetes and ceremonials. After making architectural tours in Germany, England, Italy and Sicily, he published the result of his observations in the latter country in the work Architecture antique de la Sicile (3 vols., 1826-1830; new edition, 1866-1867), and also in Architecture inoderne de la Sicile (1826-1835). One of his important discoveries was that colour had been made use of in ancient Greek architecture, a subject which he especially discussed in Architecture polychrome chez les Grecs (1830) and in Restitution du temple d'Empedocle d Selinunte (1851); and in accordance with the doctrines enunciated in these works he was in the habit of making colour an important feature in most of his architectural designs. His principal building is the church of St Vincent de Paul in the basilica style, which was constructed between 1830 and 1844. He also designed the two fountains in the Place de la Concorde, the Circus of the Empress, the Rotunda of the panoramas, many cafés and restaurants of the Champs Elysees, the houses forming the circle round the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile, besides many embellishments of the Bois de Boulogne and other places. In 1833 he was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts. He died in Paris on the 25th of March 1867.