The Ecole des Beaux-Arts: Modes and Manners
Author(s): Jean Paul Carlhian
Source: JAE , Nov., 1979, Vol. 33, No. 2, Beginnings (Nov., 1979), pp. 7-17
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools
of Architecture, Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1424347
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THE ECOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS:
MODES AND MANNERS
The Spirit of the Ecole: Freedom,
Competition, Variety
As originally conceived, initially developed,
constantly improved, and finally
refined, the spirit of the Ecole relied on the
appropriate blending and careful dosing of
two basic tenets, freedom and competition,
united by the notion that, in order to
be successful, the preparation towards, and
the exercise of, the profession of Architecture
was to be a joyful experience.
Freedom: Since the concept of freedom
can only be conceived in contrast to the
strictest of regulations, the Ecole was to
develop the most precise and rigid approach
of any system of architectural education
ever conceived, not only in terms of
its very structure, but in the selection and
tenure of its teachers, the type and content
of its courses, the number and kind of
exercises and their sequence, not to mention
the quality and size of its student
body.
By contrast, the Ecole's students enjoyed
the greatest freedom ever granted to
any student of his kind. In terms of eligibility
there were no academic prerequisites;
in terms of age, nationality or race, there
were no restrictions. On his way to the diploma
certifying the successful completion
of his studies, he could take as much time
as he saw fit. He was free to select his design
teacher, to pick, within certain limits,
the order, sequence and tempo of his
courses, for a tuition which was virtually
cost free. Once admitted, all he had to do,
to remain a student in good standing, was
to sign up for a course or a design problem
once a year: an imposition on his time
never exceeding one hour at the most. It
was enough for forty or so young or not so
young men and women to get together and
select an architect as their teacher, for the
latter to be accepted as a full-fledged
member of the teaching body, and eventually
of that crucially important ruling body,
the architectural jury, which made all decisions
on a student's progress as a designer.
Competition: Recognizing the fact that
success, not only in life in general, but in
architectural practice in particular (especially
in France), was attained through
competition, the development of a competitive
spirit became a basic goal of the
Ecole. Far from merely recognizing it as a
regrettable and inevitable evil of civilization,
the Ecole endeavoured assiduously to
present it as an exciting and rewarding pursuit
in itself. Admission (ie, registration)
was regulated by a bi-annual competition
which selected the forty or so best candidates.
Once admitted, the student was offered,
in the design field, a series of enormously
varied and frequent exercises,
carefully devised, appropriately weighted,
fully advertised and aimed not only at
demonstrating his natural gifts and testing
his acquired skills, but at revealing his potential
talent, always in competition with
his fellow students, on identical terms and
with complete anonymity.
Variety in Assignments: In its actively
pursued determination to develop and improve
students' morale, by not only relieving
boredom but assuaging frustration, the
Ecole devised a carefully orchestrated
series of checks and balances aimed at
maintaining interest and producing excitement.
The rigidity and anonymity of
Ecole-sponsored courses was relieved by
the casualness and intimacy of atelier life.
Technical courses were intermingled with
studio exercises. Architectural projects of
long duration were interrupted by quick
sketch problems. Design challenges requiring
exacting logical thinking were opposed
to others calling for the free display
of artistic talent. Examination periods and
design deadlines were not only scheduled
in accordance with stringent calendar requirements
but dovetailed in such a way as
not only to allow, but to encourage, mutual
assistance between candidates for admission
and registered students, lower and
upper classmen, those in a hurry to complete
their studies and those seeking the
Prix de Rome.
Variety in Atelier and Ecole: In the
atelier, students received advice and encouragement
from elders in return for help
in menial tasks. While the patron, orstudio-master in his weekly sporadic twohour
visits gave the tone to the problem at
hand, defined its general goals, and
provided the expected leadership, it was
up to the senior students (the anciens) to
translate such ideals into more pragmatic
JEAN PAUL CARLHIAN, FAIA, attended
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Marseille and Paris as
an "aspirant," student and graduate in training
for the Grand Prix de Rome over a decade, interrupted
by a two year stint at Harvard to earn a
Master's degree in City Planning. His remarks, it
should be noted, are based on personal reminiscences
and should be understood as essentially pertaining
to the school's curriculum after World War I. But
this curriculum did not depart significantly from
that ofthe turn of the century: the era of the school's
true greatness. The illustrations are part of a set to
accompany hisforthcoming book on the influence of
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts upon American architects
and architecture, written with the assistance of a
grantfrom the National Endowment of the Arts.
terms for the benefit of all. Each atelier,
grouping 50 to 100 students aged from 15
to 30 and coming from all kinds of cultural,
economic or political backgrounds, was a
tightly knit body, jealous of its independence,
proud of its achievements, and
openly scornful (while, at times, secretly
envious) of other ateliers.
The Ecole and its classroom courses offered
the opportunity to meet and compete
with other members of the student
body. Attendance at lectures was optional.
Professors were accustomed to giving out
grades purely on the basis of the papers
submitted or the validity of answers given
at oral examination. Rightly or wrongly,
they were reconciled to the fact that absenteeism
was usually caused by the lure of
travel, the fatigue of completing a design
project on time, or the necessities of making
a living by working as a draftsman,
rather than by lack of interest.
The Curriculum
Choosing an Atelier: The first thing anyone
intending to study architecture at the
Ecole des Beaux Arts had to do was to join
an atelier. How his choice was made between
the dozen or so ateliers in operation
depended upon a series of circumstances.
An architect's son would listen to his
father's advice following the latter's personal
inclination, inquiries or past loyalties.
A candidate aiming for the Grand Prix
de Rome would choose an atelier headed
by a member of the Institut, the organization
in charge of running this prestigious
competition. One might be lured into joining
a certain atelier on account of its acquired
reputation, whether justified or
not: one being good at planning, another
specially versed in decorative exercises,
this one featuring a small enrollment and
greater personal attention from its teacher,
the other counting amongst its members
the greatest number of medal winners,
some featuring foreigners, others women,
etc. Many a time choices were dependent
upon the vagaries of personal acquaintances.
Those resulting from inquiries
made at the School were likely to lead the
candidates towards the so-called ateliers interieurs,
that is those run by the School and
located within its confines, rather than towards
any atelier exterieur, which due to its 7
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independent position offered greater
freedom of operation. While residents of
outlying regions tended to gravitate towards
the ecoles regionales established in
such cities as Lille, Rouen, Lyon, Aix-Marseille,
Nice, Toulouse, Bordeaux, foreigners
for obvious reasons patronized the
Paris ateliers.
Changing atelier in the course of one's
studies, was not only universally frowned
upon and actively discouraged, but made
very difficult, if not practically impossible
due to the total severance of personal
friendships already established. Its effect
was a general ostracization from the student
body at large leading towards the
psychological traumas caused by the damage
inflicted upon the individual's prestige
and reputation and the resulting time lost
in regaining one's position in the newly
chosen atelier-the considerable afferent
increase in the degree of hazing not-
withstanding.
The atelier was to provide the home
base for the student for the whole duration
of his life at the Ecole. The atelier was
where all the design exercises, the core of
the Ecole's educational system, took place.
It was there that one prepared for the entrance
competition (concours d'admission),
and it was there that one recruited help
from which to complete his Thesis (Dip-
16me). It was there that all design instruction
took place, whether from older students
(anciens) which were the greater
source of such help, or from thepatron, the
nominal head of the atelier, whose reputation,
prestige, busy schedule and adherence
to traditional teaching methods prevented
him from providing any form of individual
attention to the hundred or so
bodies which constituted his atelier.
Preparingfor the Entrance Competition:
The aspiring student's next step was to
prepare for the entrance competition,
which consisted of several problems or
hurdles to be negotiated, one at a time,
with a rate of attrition accordingly growing
with the survivors being ranked in order of
points accrued and the forty best being the
only ones admitted to the Ecole at any one
session. The first problem consisted ofal2
hour architectural design, simple in nature,
requiring the use of classical motifs, expressed
in plan, section and elevation and
rendered with appropriate shadows. Such
an exercise, therefore, required from its
author not only an understanding of
classical proportions, a familiarity with the
orders, a knowledge of simple geometry in
order to establish the proper correspondence
between different projected
views of the building, and to represent accurately
the meeting of complex forms
such as vaults as well as the correct way of
casting shadows created by an imaginary
sun, traditionally shining down at a 45
angle from the upper left corner of the
drawing. Pencil was the favored medium,
enhanced with washes of diluted Chinese
ink. Problems consisted of small freestanding
pavilions or simple facade motifs
usually built out of stone and featuring the
use of a classical order, whether Doric,
Ionic or Corinthian.
The second step, a double hurdle, called
for the execution of a drawing of a decorative
element, antique or classical, offered
in the form of a plaster cast to be represented
as accurately as possible in 8 hours,
and the completion of a soft clay reproduction
of a low-relief ornament also selected
from antique or renaissance examples.
The third step consisted of a set of examinations
in the scientific fields, the most
difficult one being a two hour exercise in
descriptive geometry such as, for instance,
an accurate graphic representation of an intersection
of vaults with the development
of a selected component through appropriate
projections.
In view of the fact that, upon enlisting
into an atelier, most of the aspiring students
had had no other training than purely
academic pursuits dispensed by the typical
French educational system, they had to
learn such technical skills from scratch.
While the atelier provided the necessary
training in architectural drawing and outside
academies took care of freehand drawing,
the required specialized scientific
knowledge had to be acquired from selfsprouting
one-man institutions entirely
devoted to such pursuits.
Student of the School: Once admitted to
the school, the student could vaunt his new
title of Eleve de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, a
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Plan for Un College de France by Patrice Bounet,
Grand Prix de Rome 1906. The programme is
closely related to that of the Esquisse de 24 Heures
on the same subject (discussedelsewhere in this issue
by Professor Anderson) for the Grand Prix Competition
of 1878. It embodies all the qualities praised
by Gromort, in his discussion of this competition,
who thought the disposition of thefour classrooms
on either side of the main open court worthy of an
illustration in his "Essai sur la Theorie de l'Architecture,"
pl 70. The parti adopted is a perfect
interpretation of the classic double T-disposition so
dear to the Ecole's students as to have, in lateryears,
become a true plan cliche' into which many a program
was ruthlessly squeezed. Here, indeed, les
blancs filet et les gris se retournent.
condition which many Americans consid
ered as constituting a proof of their capability
and of a testimonial for home con
sumption of their having "attended the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts," even if it was for n
longer than a month!
On his way to the degree of Architecte
Dipl6me" par le Gouvernment, sanctioning
the completion of his studies, the studen
had, in a sequential order, to successfully
fulfill the requirements of the second class,
then those of the first class, before being
declared eligible (following proof of out
side practice) to tackle the last step: th
preparation and presentation of his thesi
or Dipl6me.
The second class, like the concours d'admission,
was equally devoted to exercises
pertaining more or less to two discipline
architectural design on the one hand, and a
set of scientific and construction courses
involving lectures delivered within the
confines of the Ecole itself and sanctioned
by written and oral examinations, on the
other.
The initial design proBlems, called
analytiques, consisted of the organization
of elements definitely borrowed from the
classics into simple structures, a repetition
in kind of the esquisse d'admission (the very
first step of the entrance competition described
above) but at a larger scale and in
much greater detail. The student was obligated
to obtain a passing grade upon at
least three of such exercises before being
allowed to undertake architectural projects
dealing with contemporary problems.
The importance of such a step and of the
administration's insistence that it be mastered
first cannot be overestimated. While
a superficial appraisal of its merits might
condemn it as useless or, even worse, an
inducement towards copy, its basic value,
and one essential to the student's whole future
attitude towards historical matters,
rested upon the fact that by forcing him to
actually make use of past historical elements
as basic components of his own
composition, it developed in the student
not only a familiarity with, but an attitude
towards history which was going to stay
with him for life. Historic elements, far
from being merely illustrations in a book,
or a slide projected on a screen, became his
own to use, manipulate, distort or
rearrange. Should he or she one day decide
to discard them deliberately, it would be en
connaissance de cause and not through sheer
ignorance.
Following the successful completion of
three of such analytiques, of which six
were offered each year, the student would
have now to meet the requirements of the
architectural problem per se, an exercise
involving the production of an individual
esquisse, prepared in camera (en loge) at the
Ecole, to be developed and enlarged, with
outside help, at the atelier, into aprojet rendu,
a process of considerable importance
and vital consequence whose implications
will be examined at length further on. Six
such exercises were offered annually. Suc-8
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cess in at least five instances was required
for promotion to first class.
In addition, another form of design
exercise, the esquisse-esquisse of which six
were also issued each year, was offered to
the students, with success in at least two
also required.
As mentioned before, concurrent with
these efforts in the design field, the student
had to satisfy the requirements of a
series of scientific endeavours which consisted
basically of a trilogy featuring a
course in Statics and Strength of Materials,
one in Descriptive Geometry and one in
Stereotomy (the art or technique of cutting
solids). Another course dealt with the
study of Perspective. The manner in which
this course was taught, through blackboard
classroom exercises, with only one
hardline constructed perspective drawing
required as a final submission, may serve as
a significant indication of the degree of importance
the Ecole sought to give to
perspective drawing. That no such mode of
representation was ever part of any project,
be it in second or first class, is
symptomatic. The 1863 Grand Prix de
Rome competition (not in itself part of the
Ecole's curriculum it should be noted) was
not only a rare exception to the general set
of required drawings but possibly the only
such example.
The most difficult course, for which the
above triad was a prerequisite, and which
was most feared by the students, was the
course in construction. Yearly given, it
consisted of a strenuous series of lectures
culminating in lengthy oral examination
accompanied by the presentation of an
elaborate construction project featuring
structural drawings, working-drawing type
details, accurate dimensioning and appropriate
computations presented on several
panels, as contrasted to the usual single
one.
Rounding up the second class requisites,
besides the course in History of Architecture
described further, were the "Trois
Arts," exercises paralleling those of the entrance
competition, consisting of the
freehand drawing of an ornament, that of a
figure and the recurrent, and hated by all,
clay modeling of a decorative ornament.
Having successfully fulfilled all the
above mentioned requirements, the student
was promoted to first class, his student
life's aspiration, where he could indulge
full time in his true passion, architectural
design, to which he could now turn
his undivided attention (save for a repeat
of the above trilogy, a course in physics and
professional practice, and the aforementioned
history course).
The Ecole saw to it that he was given
ample opportunity to demonstrate his ability
to exercise judgment when tackling, on
his own, design assignments within the
Ecole's premises as well as to perfect his
skill in developing a basic idea (or parti)
and ultimate presentation at the atelier.
During the course of any one academic
year, he was offered eighteen such oppor-
tunities:
1) Six projects (calling for preliminary esquisses
produced en loge to be further developed
at the atelier) ranging in span
from five weeks to three months an involving
normal presentations of plan,
section and elevation (with one such projet,
however, placing a special emphasis
upon a large-scale section).
2) Six esquisses-esquisses, executed at the
Ecole during a single twelve hour session
consisting of either a complete exercise
in plan or a skillful perspective representation
of a given structure.
3) Six concours or exercises, each devoted
to a specific aspect of architectural education
in that one of them, the Concours
Rougevin, consisted essentially of a rendering
(which, in order to assure the originality
of the finished product, was to be
executed over a four-day span within the
confines of the Ecole); another of them,
the Concours Godeboeuf, was dedicated
to the study and representation of a given
material, the use of which was therefore a
mandatory requirement of the program;
another of them, the Concours Delaon,
addressed itself to problems of landscape
architecture; another of them was a
three-day venture dealing with planning
or urban design issues; another emphasized
large scale concepts (whether
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Esquissefor a Projet by Julia Morgan, who was
admitted to the Ecole in 1898; the first woman to
have achieved such distinction, and one year later
than Paul Cret. The program being, possibly, Un
Musee pour un Chef-lieu d'Arrondissement,
for which Paul Cret earned a medaille (Guerinet
pl 101), the facade of which presents interesting
similarities with his entry in the Pan-American
Union Competition which he won in 1907. This
esquisse is a good example of the kind ofindication
expected, at the time, from a Second Classestudent
at the end of eight hours spent en loge. Itfeatures,
as usual, a plan, section and elevation. Julia Morgan's
indications of entourages are noteworthy.
The original of this esquisse, a rarity, is in the
Library of the School of Architecture in Berkeley,
California.
plan or elevations); and lastly, there was
an exercise whose program was aimed at
developing futuristic, utopian or visionary
ideas.
The institution of these last two concours
was due to the generosity of Americans
motivated partly by a desire to mollify the
criticism leveled against them from winning
so many of the prizes endowed by
French citizens with French funds, and to
express their recognizance for the free
education the Ecole had provided them.
Since success in a minimum of six out of
these eighteen exercises (in addition to the
Ecole's courses mentioned above) were all
that was required to be declared eligible
for the final thesis preparation, it might
appear that such an achievement was
within easy reach. That it was not so is attributable
to the fact that the timetable,
due to the multiplicity of exercises taking
place in a span of nine months, involved
much overlapping, which prevented a candidate
from partaking in all the exercises
offered, and also to the fierceness of the
competition offered by the cumulative
presence of eager and talented first class
students extending their stay at the Ecole
in a frantic pursuit of those special qualifying
awards for the Grand Prix de Rome
competition. Not only were the problems
more complex, and more difficult to solve
but the presentation requirements more
demanding, and the quality of the overall
submissions of a much higher order.
In fact, unless his slowness in acquiring
the necessary points in the Ecole's scientific
courses allowed him to develop his
proficiency in design to a higher level than
Second Class expectations, rare was the
student who, upon promotion to First
Class, would start earning passing grades in
Design Problems right off the bat.
To some, the Diplome or Thesis exercise
was just a formality to get over with, to
others a chore to be painfully performed in
order to obtain a coveted piece of parchment,
and to most the opportunity offered
by the freedom of choice of the program
submitted for approval a first step of a carefully
planned career, already mapped according
to a definite orientation. The most
talented, seeking the Grand Prix Award,
striving to win this prestigious award,
would in fact keep postponing the obligation
of fulfilling the Diplome formalities in
the hope that they might avoid its requirements-which,
in their rapidly developing
pride and conceit, had grown to
seem demeaning if not outright offensive.
A final prerequisite to the undertaking
of one's thesis was furnishing proof of
one's having been involved in the actual
practice of architecture by having served as
an apprentice in a recognized architectural
office for a period of at least one year.
Such a requirement was often circumvented
by the issuance of complacent certificates
by patrons overeager to overlook
the lack of such training on the part of their
best students, all Grand Prix de Rome candidates,
kept too busy with the exacting 9
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ar ?be ar I be
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This set ofsix sketches by the author represents an attempt at recreating the almost instinctive notation method used by the Ecole's en loge students upon
reading a hierarchically organizedprogram in the process of ordering its main elements towards the goal of producing within an eight-hour period, an
esquisse for a projet to be further developed at the atelier within a span of six weeks or so. It shows how a set of elements, quite different from those
enumerated in the College de France, can in fact be assembled in a double T-configuration.
and time-consuming demands of the preparation
of this important competition.
The Thesis consisted of a lengthy oral
examination by a prominent jury accompanying
the complete presentation of a
selected -building including all necessary
plans, sections and elevations, duly dimensioned
and indicated in the manner of
working drawings featuring construction
details, structural diagrams and computations,
as well as outline specifications and
cost estimate.
The degree subsequently issued of Architecte
DPLG, it should be noted, gave
the graduate the right to call himself an architect
and to build anything in France
without any further examination at any
point during his lifetime.
The Design Process
Conception-The Esquisse: 12 hours
exercise en loge at the Ecole. Each of the
yearly architectural problems offered the
students consisted of an initial sketch (the
famous esquisse) and a carefully drawn
project (orprojet rendu). The esquisse was a
sketch produced within a maximum of 12
hours, by each student, isolated within the
confines of the Ecole in a private alcove or
loge. It embodied his interpretation of a
program sprung upon him on a given
morning, and constituted a record of his
very own concept of the plan, section and
elevation of the building (or group of
buildings) required to fulfill its requirements.
Keeping a copy of his esquisse, the
student returned to his atelier when he was
given six weeks or so to develop further his
original idea, with any help or assistance of
his choosing, and to present it on a given
date, in an enlarged version, according to a
set of predetermined rigid specifications.
A jury assembled three days later assessed
all the projects submitted.
The importance of this procedure cannot
be over-stressed. The production of
the esquisse was the student's own creative
act; and the resulting document was to
constitute a guarantee of the originality
and genuineness of his idea against any
outside influence, whether it be criticism
from a strong-willed patron or sarcasm
from fellow students. Furthermore, the
Ecole itself, holding the ever-present
menace and threat of an Hors de Concours
ruling, became the very guarantor of the
genuineness of the document and of the
concept it represented. In requiring the
preparation of an esquisse for all architectural
projects, the Ecole, while exercising
the student's selective ability, was, at the
same time, taking all necessary precautions
to arm him against any outside intervention
by others: patron, anciens or fellow
students.
It is in this vital, and crucial, instance that
the Ecole shone as unique. Remove the
necessity for the student to choose alone,
attenuate the agony of such decision-making,
reduce the number of such opportunities
given him, or, at worst, eliminate
such an exercise entirely, and you, by
eliminating his only defense against his
teachers, not only effectively eradicate the
main, precept of artistic freedom upon
which the Ecole was built, but you also effectively
deprive the student of his only
chance to practice, as an act of free will, the
exercise of judgment.
Here were the steps involved:
A) Reading the Program: An adequately
trained student was expected to be
able to grasp the main elements of any program
at first glance. Subsequent reading
enabled him to single out their relative importance.
Other readings would be devoted
to the search for clues leading to
their proper hierarchic organization as well
as to the confirmation of the amount of
trivia to be overlooked, ignored and eventually
discarded.
The overall important title of the program
itself, gave an indisputable clue as to
the appropriate way of approaching its
planning. A program involving the army
implied that great emphasis should be
given to parade grounds, the hierarchic
disposition of elements, and the judicious
location of such symbolic features as the
flagpole. A program of a religious nature
called for inward-looking cloister-like enclosures,
imbued with mystery, and an appropriately
significant placing of the
chapel or church regardless of size. Projects
involving security problems such as
museums, libraries or prisons obviously
commanded a single-entry solution. Railroad
stations, theatres, and other programs
requiring the handling of large crowds
called for precisely the opposite.
B) Arriving at a Solution in Plan: The
Parti (Parti /"/ n-s (F fr MF, match, party,
decision); the basic general scheme of an
architectural design. [Webster's Third New
International Dictionary, 1971]). The main
element of the program, when properly
identified, was put down first. In view of
the ingrained Western habit of reading
from top to bottom, of the traditional importance
given the title appearing on any
printed page, and of the recognized prominence
given to its position at top center, it
should be a surprise to no one to find the
expression of the primary element of the
program, and as such always stated first, to
be laid down in precisely such a location.
Should secondary elements turn out to
be even in number, their symmetrical organization,
on either side of an imaginary
axis, was not only intellectually logical but
explainable by the law of minimal effort.
The elements in the question also took less
room on the sheet. Should they be uneven
in number, trouble was in the offing.
As to the location of the leftover odd
one, placing it in the middle, below the
main element would not only give it an undeserved
prominance by comparison with
the others of identical importance, but
would also entail unwieldy difficulties of
access to the main element of the plan, as
well as an unsightly facade. Three methods
of approach remained open: the suppression
of one of the elements by relegating it
to the next hierarchic level (a risky proposition);
the addition of an element by
elevating one from the next lower echelon
(another chancy move); or, in certain cases,
and only in such cases, its assignment to a
unique and special location, still on axis,
but above the main element, not unlike the10
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position of the author's name in
page of a book. A more radical s
however, remained still available: the
adoption of a non-symmetrical parti. The
student was, at this very point, facing a
choice. Strictly alone with his thoughts, he
had to decide one way or the other. He
was, at this point, exercising judgment;
that very activity which was to punctuate
his professional activity during his whole
lifetime as an architect.
The correct handling of an asymmetrical
parti called for certain rules to be followed.
The format had now become horizontal,
whereby the main element, while still occupying
a top-of-the sheet position, could
remain prominent. Turning the sheet on
its side allowed a large area to be devoted
to the disposition of all other and equal in
importance secondary elements. These
were commonly deployed to the right, as
reading goes traditionally from left to
right. There arose, now, the unique opportunity
to dispose the one odd element to
the left of the approach to the main element,
yet on the very same hierarchic level
as the remaining even number of equally
important elements. Such a solution enabled
the main element to retain its own
symmetry: (an admitted attribute of any
such element) and gave the odd element
the prominence it deserves. It also often
proves to be a good answer to those tricky
programs calling for two almost equally
important elements.
If the symmetrical option had been chosen,
all that remained to be done was the
arrangement of the third ranking elements.
These could be disposed, laterally,
beyond the secondary ones, or upon a
third tier. The basic tenet of always leaving
the view of the main element unobstructed
was thus faithfully observed.
C) In Section: The section came next.
Always taken perpendicularly to the anticipated
main facade, it offered the opportunity
to find a possible location at an
upper level for any off-center, and therefore
otherwise bothersome secondary
element. Such an opportunity postponed
effectively until later any definite commitment
in the intricate (and at this point,
too-detailed) handling of the tertiary ele-
ments.
D) In Elevation: The handling of the
elevation had, to a certain extent, been
somewhat committed to in the section, and
therefore posed few difficulties for an able
student. In the front row, one found the
tertiary elements. Then came the secondary
elements, read clearly above them. The
main element, conventionally and rationally
the highest of all, remained free to
offer all its glory to the viewer, at the end
of an unobstructed vista carefully kept
open for such a purpose from the very beginning
of the exercise.
E) Horizontal or Vertical Presentation.
The Final Presentation Sheet being always
rectangular in shape, the student was, in
each instance, given the freedom to choose
in which direction it was to be presented.
Everyone knew that a horizontal presentation,
taking more room on the exhibition
wall, was the more favorable, since a
greater number of jury members could
crowd in front of it. However, the required
scale of the final drawings had to be carefully
taken into consideration when making
the initial esquisse, since a decision to
orient the plan with its greatest dimension
lengthwise might (depending on the given
dimensions of the site) lead to the impossibility
of actually fitting on the sheet an elevation
ultimately required to be drawn at
twice the scale of the plan. It may be seen,
therefore, how, in certain cases, not only
the format of the sheet but presentation
goals could influence the composition of
the plan from the very beginning. With
such considerations in mind, the student
remained free, circumstances permitting,
to play the well-known trick of placing his
building diagonally across the site (always
described in rectangular or square terms)
in order to gain those precious extra centimeters
of elevation which, he believed,
would help him beat his rivals.
Development: The Project at the Atelier:
Students were repeatedly advised of the
importance of the title of the program.
They were instructed to ponder upon it at
length, read it over and over again in order
to grasp the meaning of each and every one
of its words. "Un Hotel de Voyageurs"
might be one thing (a place for travellers to
spend a few nights). How different from
"Un Hotel de Villegiature!" (a holiday
hotel - an obvious allusion to the importance
to be given to views: single-loaded
corridor in the offing) or just simply
"Un Grand Hotel" (prestige, splendid receptions,
snobbish pride in being included
among its guests, etc: The Ritz, in other
words). All three programs might end up
requiring the identical number of rooms,
similar facilities and hence the same basic
approach to the disposition and planning
of the main elements: entrance lobby, salons,
dining rooms, kitchen, etc. Yet, the
implied "character" alluded to in one crucial
word of the title would have to be imparted
to the project by the student if he
intended to achieve a successful result. No
medaille to him who developed a plan for a
resort hotel which worked like a charm but
had half the rooms facing away from the
sea! And let us not forget: a plain hotel differed
from une auberge (a simple inn), une
hostellerie (a hostelry), un caravanserail (a
caravansary, that is an inn in Eastern countries
where caravans rest at night), un relais
touristique (an inn in a choice, out-of-theway
location to be patronized by automobilists
with time to spare).
In the title Un etablissement de Bain Publics
the adjective "Publics" conveys to it a
definite character: more rugged and simpler
than a mere Etablissement de Bains
which might be private and, therefore,
more elaborate. While both would imply
an urban location, Un Etablissement Thermal
is quite another proposition. A rural,
open site in a mountainous setting comes
to light, accompanied by all the appropriate
trimmings: porticos, colonnades,
patios, gardens, fountains, reflecting pools
and the like; in other words a spa where
patrons "took the waters."
On the other hand, the title Un Institut
de Thalassotherapie, obviously the wording
of a somewhat eccentric program-writer,
should fool nobody; a seaside location
and southern orientation with ample
terraces for sunbathing is all it implies.
Little was ever said about the environment.
While, at times, allusions were made
to the general climatic or circumstantial 11
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conditions ("a Mediterranean site," "a view
of the sea," "commanding a panorama of
mountains"), seldom, if ever, were the
physical conditions of the immediate surroundings
mentioned. It is interesting to
note, in this respect, that, while every
French student knew that his destiny, in all
probability, would be to build within the
existing environment of cities saddled with
sentimental as well as stylistic traditions,
he was never subjected to such constraints
while at the Ecole.
Similar considerations applied to the orientation,
topography, and configuration
of the site itself. Allusions to orientation
were often completely omitted. It was up
to the student being given a problem requiring
north light conditions (such as an
art school) to display his acumen by devising
his own compass rose. As for topography,
the sites given were, in most cases,
generally flat. If in some instances, a slope
was mentioned it was inevitably of an even
and gentle nature. Contours were never
given. It is easy to see how the absence of
such topographic features could play its
own part in the development of an axial
parti which, lacking the challenge of having
to cope with bothersome topographic
features, could spread its logical simplicity
across the countryside.
The site itself was described either as an
"area not exceeding 'x' number of meters
in one direction" (which inevitably implied,
in the mind of a student, always intent
upon giving his project the greatest
possible scope, a square of"x" dimensions)
or a rectangle of x times y meters. Save for
a few well-known Grand Prix competitions,
(one on a triangular site Un College,
1780) and another on an oddly shaped real
city lot (Un Hotel a Paris pour un Riche
Banquier, 1866), sites were always assumed
to be, or turned out to be, square or
rectangular in shape. This in a country,
France, whose cities were rarely laid out on
a rectangular grid.
While the French student was considering
an assignment such as the completion
of the Louvre and the solution to its bent
axis as the greatest honor, challenge or responsibility
which could be bestowed
upon him (as the climax of a career as the
No 1 architect of his homeland), his
American counterpart, unencumbered
with such historic precedents and awkward,
if not embarrassing, conditions,
would be destined to unwrap, over the new
checker-boarded cities of the great American
plains, the results of precepts hurriedly
acquired from a foreign school on foreign
soil.
The greatest amount of the student's effort
was devoted to the plan. Deemed the
most important element of the plan-section-elevation
trilogy, it was always tackled
first. We have examined how, in his esquisse,
the student had already committed
himself to the basic disposition of the elements
of his composition. The task at
hand, now, was how best to tie all these
elements together in a rational, clear, harmoniously
satisfying and practically convincing
manner. Two basic considerations,
at this point, came into play: the handling
of natural light and provisions for the
shedding of rain water.
Artificial light was never recognized as
an acceptable solution justifying the assignment
of windowless spaces to human
use. It was deemed acceptable only for
storage areas, library stacks, or the like;
never for people.
In spite of such precedents as the
"Printemps" or "Bon Marche" department
stores, zenithal light was not only frowned
upon (with obvious exceptions deemed acceptable
because of their special nature
such as railroad stations, Les Halles, the
Grand Palais or the Galerie des Machines)
but generally ostracized. If and when permissible,
top light had to be incorporated
into a system of pitched roofs. No large
areas of basically flat glazed areas were
ever tolerated. Saw-toothed sheds or
clerestories surmounting large work
spaces, for instance, were, however, acceptable,
and accepted, devices for introducing
natural light into large areas otherwise
surrounded by subsidiary, lowerroofed
elements.
The resulting necessity of never allowing
the disposition of more than three elements
side by side thus becomes readily
apparent.
Most of the pragmatic requirements
dealing with structure open to the public,
and the necessity of allowing access to certain
elements of the composition without
going through others, caused the development
of the by-passing corridor (or
circulation) as a basic element of plan organization.
Such passageways, being used
by the public, had to be adequately bathed
with natural light. This explains all the fuss
about light wells, atria, courtyards, extensively
dwelt upon by Guadet, Gromort and
-, //
-' - 2 . ,
"A Gateway to a Convent"-A tuwelve hour
esquisse-esquisse indicating that the use of
classical orders was no dictate--John Russell Pope,
architect of the National Gallery in Washington.
others. The corridor, as serving space,
along with the elements it served, formed
an inextricably knitted whole, subject to
endless variations and articulations, all
governed by the mandatory requirement
for the provision of natural light. The problem
became much more difficult to handle
when it was not possible to avoid grouping
three elements side by side, while still
meeting the above mentioned criteria. It
became further compounded by the traditional
necessity, insisted upon by the
Ecole, of shedding rainwater by safe and
rational experience-tested methods.
France, it should be remembered, has a
rainy climate. It is not surprising therefore,
to find all design-teaching at the Ecole
dominated by such a consideration. While
terraces, (or for that matter flat roofs),
were deemed acceptable in Italy, Greece
or Egypt, they were branded as impractical
in Northern Countries; and it was emphasized
that they usually leaked. The
pitched roof, therefore, became the only
acceptable method of covering whole
buildings or their elements. Roof pitches
have always had their own requirements,
dictated by materials available at the time,
such as slate or tile; and the very size of the
area to be roofed has a direct bearing on
the roof height. Large areas might well lead
to unsightly high roofs out of proportion
with the facade, or, at very least, to a waste
of interior space difficult to justify. One
can, therefore, readily understand the tendency
towards the breaking up of large and
complex elements of the plan into smaller
units, each one becoming easier to roof in-
dividually.
The only drafting exercise repeatedly
prescribed by the patron, although never
actually required by the Ecole as a part of
the student's submission, was a roof plan
study (Le plan des toitures). A significant
example of such a preoccupation might be
illustrated by Labrouste's most unusual, if
not unheard of, inclusion of a roof plan in
his 1824 Tribunal de Cassation Grand Prix
submission. Valleys devoid of any outlet
beyond the ashlar line were absolutely
condemned as risky, if not outwardly unsafe.
Roof conductors, if and when required,
had to be positioned externally to
avoid leaks caused by clogging, France
being a country noted for its poor heating
systems and lack of maintenance of its
buildings. The shedding of water from
high double pitched roofs onto lower shed
ones was however deemed an acceptable
solution. Thus, the elaboration of intricate
roof plans became part of the student's
study routine. It should be noted that in
order to safeguard the precious precept of
unity, all roofs on any one building were
assigned identical pitches: an eminently rational
solution, after all, as directly related
to the selection of the roofing material.
The resulting tendency was to dispose
building elements perpendicularly to each
other, as their roof intersections turned
out invariably at 45?. Such was another instance
favoring, if not resulting from, the12
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use of the 450 triangle as a drawing instrument.
It is easy to see how such an approach
to the problem of shedding water,
and the afferent sketching exercise,
further influenced hierarchic organization
of various elements in the composition of a
plan.
The plan remained to the very end the
horizontal expression of a load-bearing
wall structure. The importance of such a
consideration in the face of the structural
feats of Belanger, Hittorff, Horeau, Labrouste
or Baltard, or later-on of Auguste
P.erret, cannot be overstressed. Great attention
was given to wall thicknesses which
were manipulated at will. Through exaggeration
of their horizontal dimensions, the
addition of pilasters and detached columns,
they were meant to convey a feeling
of the relative heights of the volumes arising
from them.
When desired, they were thinned out by
carved niches. The aim of such efforts, all
resulting in the poche, ("the black portion
of an architectural plan representing solids
such as walls and columns) was not restricted
to the expression of volumes; it offered
also an opportunity for the expression
of character: industrial plants, studios,
military barracks rated only straight unadorned
walls, while theatres, spas and
other programs dedicated to recreation
called for a profusion of niches, pilasters,
columns and the like.
The pochb, finding its inspiration in 18th
century precedents, such as the engravings
in Mariette's A rchitecture Francaise was also
used as a means of conveying a pulsating
feeling to the expression of the plan; the
squeezing of corridors and the opening up
of vestibules were underlined by the additional
pinching of crucial junction
points. Intersections of galleries received
special attention and elaborate treatment.
The poche began to "sing its own song": a
consideration far removed, and sometimes
totally divorced, from the realities of 20th
century construction!
To the rich array of vestibules, lobbies,
corridors, galleries, halls, passages was bestowed
the mission of tying all the elements
together in a clear and readily grasped ensemble
which could, ideally, be taken in its
entirety and therefore "read" at a glance.
Upon such a skeleton, a body, delineated
by the pochi, had to be constructed:
such was the role assigned to the
mosaique. Tracing its origins to 18th century
plans with their simple indication of
cornice lines, followed later on by more
elaborate examples displaying complete
reflected ceiling plans, (such as those of
d'Espouy), and finding inspiration in the
elaborate indication of marble floor patterns
(as in J H Mansard's plan for the Eglise
des Invalides), this process consisted of
covering certain areas of the plan with such
suggestive patterns deemed susceptible of
attracting attention to its main features. At
other times, on the contrary, trivial elements
were drowned in a general grey
tone, intended to make them disappear
and, therefore, emphasize the clarity of the
circulation network, treated, in such cases,
in light values. Recourse to such devices
soon lost touch with reality. The plan
ended literally painted, in the same manner
as a facade would receive its array of
trees, bushes, and other devices bent upon
hiding its defects or bringing out salient
features. The whole process was summed
up in such expressions as les blancsfilent et
les gris se retournent (the whites speed
through [the plan] while the grays turn the
corners).
With a well-organized plan with its main
features properly stacked in hierarchic
order, its various elements correctly
articulated in accordance with a working
roof plan, a well-modulated poche figuratively
expressive of the relative compressive
forces generated by various spans or
heights, the section was a cinch. When it
did not happen to turn out that way, and it
often did not, modifications had to be
brought upon the plan. So much effort had
been devoted to the plan, however, and so
little time was left, that it was with great
reluctance that such a course was adopted.
As a result, most often it was the section
which was made to bear the consequences.
As mentioned already, in certain cases,
as when an important element of the plan
could not find an appropriate place in the
overall composition without creating serious
difficulty, it was relegated to a second
floor location. Hence, the section was the
only opportunity offered the student to illustrate
this decision. As previously mentioned,
the section was essentially an exercise
in asymmetrical organization. With
the section usually located at the top of the
page, the western tradition of reading from
left to right resulted in sections which usually
featured their highest elevation towards
the right. Responding to such a progressively
rising silhouette, slight changes
in floor elevations were often introduced
ri
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, . ., ...... . 3 _Z''.4s .. ..... . ... ... ....
-A Bridge Between Two Buildings"-A twelve
hour esquisse-esquisse demonstrating thefull
use of classical motifs--Klaber.
as contrapuntal features. Of course, there
were instances when programs emphasized
the section and recognized its
importance by requiring a presentation at a
larger than usual scale. Examples of this
were buildings depending on the proper
handling of site lines for their success:
theatres, stadiums, and the like.
The study of the elevation came last.
Crucial decisions already made at the inception
of the plan, inevitably echoed and
sometimes reinforced in section, had their
direct effect on the general massing and
overall organization of the elevation.
The exceptional role given to the elevation
was the opportunity offered the author
to endow his project with a specific
character. A program for an ecclesiastical
building might call for a Romanesque or
Gothic coating. Projects dealing essentially
with exacting circulation demands,
such as railroad stations, might receive relatively
straightforward treatment, while
those of a contemplative or recreational
nature, such as spas, would be handled
with a profusion of decorative elements.
Justice called for the Tuscan or Doric order;
a small pavilion in a park usually favored
the Ionic; and a large art museum the
Corinthian, accompanied by a generous
use of niches punctuating otherwise windowless
and, therefore, blank facades.
Judicious organization of the elements in
the plan having already, with appropriate
anticipation, disposed of the problem of
visibility, by the hierarchic disposition of
elements, the only problem left was to determine
the most appropriate coating of
the resulting pyramidal organization. In
any event, there was very little time left in
the overall schedule for a more elaborate
elevation study.
The elevation completed, and its basic
shadows applied, the last step was to present
the design to the jury in the best possible
light. Clouds were drawn in to fill the
spaces above the elevation; trees and
shrubs were handy for hiding defects;
statues and vases and other decorative
elements were sprinkled around, and figures
were introduced for scale.
The rendering, this very minor element
of the student's total effort, has been given
a totally unwarranted importance by the
uninitiated. In the first place, the amount
of time devoted to this exercise (and exercise
is what the students thought it was)
never exceeded a few hours-four or five
at most-the last moments before the
submission was due. Secondly, the author,
having most probably stayed up all of the
preceding night, was in no shape to handle
the brush with the delicate touch or the
necessary boldness that was required. Such
tasks were often entrusted to a fresh crew
of specialists in the atelier, who went from
project to project practicing their skills at
the expense of the author (if they were inexperienced)
or showing off their talents
(if they were experts). Renderings in fact
were seldom the work of the authors of the
project they adorned. 13
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Assessment: TheJury
Architectural design projects were judged
"pass", "fail" or "HC" (Hors de Concours),
the latter (equivalent to a fail) being reserved
either for projects which, upon
being further developed at the atelier and
finally presented to the Jury, departed substantially
from the original "esquisse", or
for those projects which violated some
basic rules, such as: exceeding the size of
the site, lacking coordination between plan
section and elevation, submitting drawings
at the wrong scale, or tampering with the
surface of the paper in any way. While the
ratio of pass to fail was about equal, two to
five percent of the projects were singled
out for special honors, such as prizes or
medals. A basic criterion of selection for
such honors was the degree of conformity
between the esquisse and the final project.
Not only was conformity between these
two stages of the design process mandatory,
but the esquisse itself had to display a
sufficiently marked degree of intention (a
quality which well-seasoned but untalented
students soon learned to skirt in
order to avoid having to abandon the project,
due to a faulty esquisse with the resulting
waste of time) to reassure the jury that
any generating idea deserving special recognition
was the student's own, rather than
the product of a good atelier. Incidentally,
an insufficiently developed or too ambiguously
expressed esquisse would entail its
author an HC grade, making his six week
atelier work a total waste.
Special honors conferred upon the students
presented a dual advantage. Firstly,
they counted as double credits (or sometimes
even more) and hence could halve
the time the student had to spend in the
Ecole accumulating the required number
of credits to graduate; and secondly they
were the only basis upon which was drawn
the famous list of the 40 best French students
of the Ecole who were dispensed
from the first of the hurdles that spotted
the arduous course of the "Grand Prix de
Rome," the annual competition which
outdid all other competitions, and assured
a successful lifetime's career for the winner.
To have one's name not only placed on
this list, but seeing to it that it stayed there
in spite of the vagaries of awards to others,
became the prime goal of all ambitious
students, in the pursuit of which many
malpractices were, alas, committed.
The Esquisse-Esquisse:
A Special Exercise
The esquisse-esquisse, not to be confounded
with the esquisse, required as the first step
of aprojet rendu, was a special kind of exercise.
Designed to develop individual talent,
stimulate imagination and reward rendering
skill, it generally consisted of a
perspective illustration of an individual solution,
arrived at in isolation during a
twelve hour stretch, of a relatively simple
problem. While a small-scale plan and section
were usually required, often the
esquisse-esquisse would consist essentially of
a plan with the section and elevation being
downgraded in importance. Considerable
latitude was given the student as to the
choice of media, the manner of the representation,
or the arrangement within the
sheet of the paper of the design solution
called for.
What should be remembered is that the
product was a true original produced by
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"The Entrance to a Subway Station"--A twelve hour esquisse-esquisseproving that the Ecole did not shy
away from contemporary problems--Shaw of Williamsburg Restoration fame.
the student himself without the benefit of
outside help. That the pickings were
meager (few rewards being given) was of
little importance when one considers the
amount of time and effort involved. Some
of the rare first mentions in second class
and medals in first class awarded by the
jury in this kind of exercise, remaining the
property of the Ecole are kept in its archives;
as such they provide a testimony of
the winner's personal skill, a consideration
of no little significance, especially in the
case of Americans, often accused of owing
their successes to outside French help,
whether subsidized or not.
Exhibition
The jury proceedings were followed by an
exhibition of all projects submitted: sometimes
up to three hundred or so solutions
to a simple problem were thus hung together
side by side under one roof in one
large room, each submission accompanied
by the en loge esquisse nailed to it. With the
author's name now revealed and the jury's
decision affixed to each project, it was possible
to gather a general feeling of what the
jury had agreed to be the salient features of
the exercise, to see how superior certain
schemes and other poor ones in fact were,
to compare esquisses to rendus, to discover
the causes of HC decisions, etc. The few
first-mentions or medals were removed
from the crowd and hung separately with
plenty of room from which a good vantage
could be gained, often confirming the fact
that a strong idea clearly stated, simply
presented and well indicated, a solution
which was easy to read, in other words,
provided the firm basis upon which a jury's
support could be built.
The projects remained on display for
two whole days. Attendance consisted of
students on lonely quests for tips or formulas
leading to success, to groups or
teams representing ateliers' allegiances
and led by prominent anciens. Occasionally,
a patron would be seen conducting a
group of his own students and commenting
upon the jury's overall approach. In every
instance, comments, instead of being directed
at a given piece of work or at a given
student's project, remained general,
theoretical and philosophical in nature.
Program, parti, character, expression of
convictions, clarity of indication, simplicity
of statement were the nature of the
points examined and discussed.
The very fact that all submissions, due to
the drastic nature of the requirements, the
strictly enforced presentation limitations,
the paring down of the issue to a one-page
program and only three drawings (plan,
section and elevation) presented on a prescribed
single sheet of paper, were tied by
identical constraints provided a vivid
example of the kind of assailts rebelling
talent and individual ingenuity could wage14
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against the establishment. The fierceness
of the battle was made further evident by
the considerable difference in degree of
skills which only students of such widely
spaced ages, of such diversified experience
and of such longevity of presence at the
Ecole could display.
There is no doubt that the "Expo", as the
students labeled the whole project exhibition
experience, was one of the best and,
incidentally, the least costly, educational
device the administration could have devised:
"Let the projects speak for themselves."
No more useful exercise has ever
been conceived and so overlooked in the
recent history of architectural education.
Other Courses
The Cours De Theorie: Made famous by
Julien Guadet, who as a practicing architect
succeeded Guillaume and held the
chair of Professeur de Theorie from 1894
to 1908, it consisted of a series of weekly
lectures open to both second and first
class. Illustrated by slides, peppered with
references to buildings of former eras and
from foreign lands, they provided, besides
the rare philosophical utterances of individualpatrons
or masters, the only source
of theoretical information opened to the
students, other than two books, both the
works of professors of Theory, one most
famous, Elements et Theorie de 'Architecture
(1901-04) by J Guadet and the lesser
known Essai sur la Thborie de l'Architecture
(1946) by Georges Gromort.
The prestigious position of"Professeur
de The"orie" conferred to the holder of its
chair a role of primary if not crucial importance
in the development of architectural
design education at the Ecole, in that
he was responsible for the writing of every
design program from that of the entrance
competition to that of the most prestigious
concours (save those entrusted to the
Commission des Etudes or, in the case of
the Grand Prix, to the Institut), attended
all juries as an impartial observer (conflict
of interest considerations excluding him
from running an atelier), and participated
in all judgments. Upon him fell the responsibility
of seeing to it that the jurors
read and understood the program he had
written. He was the one, also, who could
guide their interpretation and, thus, influence
their judgment. That the Course was
very well attended was due not only to the
fact that the students wished to ascertain
their professor's frame of mind and possibly
gather an inkling of what the subject of
the next program might be, or that it required
no work and was not sanctioned by
an examination, but to its contents and
subject matter in both of which they were
vitally interested.
This is where one learned the difference
between step, stoop, stair, staircase,
stairway, stairwell, (marche, perron, gradin,
escalier, emmanchement or the like) or between
un peristyle, un hall, un vestibule, une
entrie, un degagement, une galerie, une circulation.
It was indeed extremely important
to understand the professor's way of thinking,
as one was called upon repeatedly to
cope with the necessity of reading between
the lines of the austere text of his pro-
grams.
The Ecole's Approach to the Teaching of
History of Architecture: While indeed
History of Architecture was the subject of
a well attended lecture course at the Ecole,
the influence upon the students and their
work reached far beyond the confines of
the Ecole's auditorium to invade the
atelier's precinct. History was in fact part
and parcel of their daily life. The course in
Theory was actually based on historic
precedents and made free-use of past
examples to not only illustrate but prove
its points. Historic references were a frequent
feature of the introductory paragraphs
of programs. Each atelier was
equipped with a sizeable library: books
were constantly brought out to be used in
discussion and serve as examples to learn
from. Students' travels were directed towards
the lands of the past featuring the
greatest examples of long dead masters' accomplishments.
Patrons and anciens, the
design course true teaching team, backed
their criticisms with historic examples.
Students, sensitive to responding to the
signals given by the administration,
whether it be from the very first entrancecompetition
exercises, to the analytical
problems being selected as the kick-off
exercises of the design course, took possession
of history. To be cast as an ignorant
in this field was considered an opprobrium.
All of which explains the high level
of attendance to the History lectures,
often in spite of the professor's
shortcomings as a lecturer. It was not only
that they provided pretty pictures to look
at (this at a time when lantern slides were
still a rarity), but that they provided wonderful
subjects of debate. Was AngeJacques
Gabriel indeed right in his selection
of a colossal order for the central pavilion
of his Ecole Militaire? Was it correct to
run such Corinthian majestic shafts right
down to the ground? Wouldn't a pedestal
be more appropriate? Why wasn't a base
level similar to Perrault's Colonnade or
Mansart's Place Vendome used . . . etc?
Such were the nature of the discussions
taking place right along with an appraisal of
the League of Nations' various partis and
whether they should have been symmetrical
or not.
The course was sanctioned by an oral examination
accompanied by the presentation
of a portfolio of drawings of historical
subjects selected by the student to illustrate
significant aspects of the course according
to a list of suggestions furnished by
the teacher. The degree of quality imparted
to the presentation of these
portfolios varied greatly from student to
student from mere tracings of examples
collected out of various books to original
and sometimes beautifully drawn interpretations
of the models selected.
It also should be noted, as a further
demonstration of the importance which
the Ecole attached to the study of history
that it was the only non-design requisite
common to both second and first class.
Sketching and Shadow Casting
Freehand Sketching at the Ecole: Al-
bi;
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dent's grasp
Building, NY. 15
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though all students, throughout their years
in the atelier, were encouraged to "get out
and sketch" they were never obliged to
submit freehand perspective sketches. To
be precise, during the preliminary studies
and subsequent developments of a projet,
neither the patron nor the anciens ever
found it necessary to rely on a three-dimensional
sketch to illustrate their comments
on a student's work. If freehand
sketching ability was held in high esteem
(and it was, in fact, greatly admired) it was
revered only as a skill to be acquired
mainly for the specific purpose of recording
visual aspects of existing buildings (at a
time when the camera had yet to be developed
as a handy instrument readily
available to students) or for the enhancement
of renderings. Beyond that, freehand
sketching ability was considered a talent, a
gift, which could, and should be developed
by those born with it, rather than a skill to
be acquired and perfected. Critical evaluation
of such talent being severe, the struggling
newcomers remained timid about
their efforts. Those albums of sketches,
records of travels, which were passed
around the atelier were opened to critical
eyes only by those who had already managed
to attain the degree of assurance required,
and who, by the sale of their
sketches on the side, often managed to defray
the cost of their studies. Therefore,
however strange as it may appear nowadays,
such freehand sketching was an endeavour
standing on its own merits (as
portrait painting, for instance, might have
been) and, consequently, divorced from
the study of architecture at the Ecole during
the students' formative years.
The sketches of the anciens and patrons
on those rare occasions when they were
deemed necessary, as illustrations of their
criticisms, were, invariably, directly related
to the mandatory drawing requirements
of the projects being developed; so,
when they did sketch, they drew plans, sections,
and elevations, not perspectives.
The far-reaching implications of such
educational policies and methods cannot
be overstressed. To the Ecole-trained architect,
the creation of three-dimensional
space, rather than being the translation, in
convenient signs and symbols (such as
perspective sketches) of a spatial concept,
was to be considered as the direct, and almost
inevitable, result of a series of logical
decisions carried out consecutively rather
than simultaneously with respect to problems
posed first in the plan, then in the partially
resulting section, and ultimately in
the consequential elevation.
Shadow Casting: Shadow casting was part
and parcel of the Ecole's student design
endeavours from the rendered elevations
and sections of the entrance competition's
very first exercise to the elaborate presentation
drawings of his thesis. While Pierre
Esquie's Trait& blimentaire d'Architecture,
the bible of any aspiring candidate, devoted
9 of its 76 plates to shadow casting,
the Second Class courses in Descriptive
Geometry and Stereotomy developed the
student's proficiency in the area of
geometric projection upon which the art of
shadow casting is actually based. As in so
many other aspects of the Ecole's educational
philosophy, shadow casting was conceived
as a pure exercise, the object of
which was to make presentation drawings
more readily legible rather than an attempt
at simulating reality. That shadows,
whether applied to plans, sections or elevation
drawings, were inevitably cast at a 45'
angle from the upper left corner can be
traced to the fact that France was a country
which refused to acknowledge the existence
of left-handedness. The only drafting
tools normally available to a student
consisted basically of a plain T-square and a
simple 45' triangle, supplemented at times
by a rarely used 30'/60' triangle. For exclusively
right-handed students the correct,
because rational, downstroke of pencil
(or pen) was thus initiated at the origin
of the shadow. The' selection of this
seemingly arbitrary angle of 45' gave a
consistent relationship between plan, section
and elevation, and was not affected by
any other considerations such as the orientation
of the plan, the latitude in which
the project was located, the hour of the
day, etc. Its persistence can be traced to the
predominance of a historically traditional
basic tool and the right-hander's familiarity
with its potential uses.
Schedules and Instruments
Distribution of Time and Organization
of Work: On a typical six-week projet, the
first one or two weeks were spent catching
up with studies sacrificed to bringing the
preceeding project to fruition, to earning a
living, or to just mulling over the problem
itself. Two or three weeks were then spent
developing the original idea conveyed in
the "esquisse." One more week was spent
on the preparation of scale drawings on
tracing paper. Problems were always due
for submission on Fridays at noon. Few
students, if any, ever started on their final
presentation before the preceeding Tuesday.
All the work up to this time had been
personal, sketches and drawings being
prepared by the author himself. The arrival
:; 4
" ' . 'r"A
Museum Vestibule and Stairway"-A six
week projet calling for the study of an interior
featuring the presentation of large scale
sections-Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center ar-
chitect.
in the atelier of the final presentation sheet
of the prescribed size stretched on a
plywood panel mounted on a wood frame
(chassis) signaled the beginning of the
preassembled team's participation. Helping
hands transferred the drawings onto
the final sheet by rubbings from the already
prepared pencil drawings on tracing
paper, and took over the task of inking
them in and casting shadows with 6H or
7H pencils (in order to engrave the paper
sufficiently to stop the ink washes crisply
when subsequently applied, usually at the
last moment). The chassis was propped up
upon trestles so several hands approaching
from different sides could work simultaneously.
Such a procedure reinforced the
hierarchic organization of the drawings on
the sheet: one helper working on the elevation
at the bottom, two others on either
side inking the plan, and the fourth developing
the section from an upside-down
position. The rubbing process encouraged,
in no uncertain ways, the use of symmetry.
First, the transfer of the drawings from
tracing paper by rubbing made it mandatory
for the drawing on tracing paper to be
drawn in reverse. The choice of a symmetrical
solution would obviously eliminate
such a problem. Second, the method of
transfer by rubbings permitted, in the case
of symmetrical parti, the preparation of
only one half of the drawing; this half being
first rubbed on another sheet and then
rubbed directly on the final sheet, the
other rubbing itself being then, in turn,
rubbed in the final sheet also. Differences
in tone or value which might thus develop
were of no importance since all drawings
were subsequently gone over in ink. It
should be noted, however, that while the
procedure worked just as well for elevations
as for plans, it could not be applied to
sections which, being required to be taken
perpendicularly to the elevation, were inevitably
asymmetrical (except, of course,
in the case of compositions square, triangular
or circular in plan).
Friday mornings were devoted to rendering.
Speed being essential, the chassis
was sloped to enable Chinese ink washes to
flow evenly down to the engraved penciled
lines while fires were kept going under the
panel to dry such washes as fast as possible.
Then came the water colorists, the masters
of the last minute ambiance-giving clouds,
trees, bushes, people, and cars which were
quickly sketched in, conveying to the
project a tropical or snow-covered look, in
a day or night setting. To preserve the
freshness of such deft last-minute touches,
it was necessary to protect as much as possible
the surface of the paper against damages
caused by hard erasing or blemishes
resulting from dirty drawing instruments
or grimey hands. The uneveness of the
edges of the chassis discouraged any attempt
to draw with precision directly on
the sheet itself. Only main axes were
applied directly on the final sheet as
guidelines for the application of rubbings.
These, incidently, had been prepared by16
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means of the same technique of flipping
over dividers, a technique which, in itself,
encouraged the use of equalities in the juxtaposition
of elements in plan. Crowded
working conditions on the final drawing
might explain why the adjustable triangle
was not developed in France as a drafting
tool (inking being done by two triangles
working against each other). Drafting tape
not having been invented, students had to
depend upon hole-making thumbtacks, a
problem which had to await the invention
of the three-pronged Swiss thumbtack to
be dealt with satisfactorily. Rubbings,
therefore, were more often than not
hand-held, contributing further to the lack
of precision of drawings.
It should be remembered that any addition
in any form to the surface of the paper
was strictly forbidden. No photographs,
obviously. No collages, of course. But also
no glued-on paper repairs were allowed. If
disaster struck (such as the spilling ofa bottle
of ink, a hole created by an overeager
eraser, a tear or a burn resulting from too
strenuous a wetting or drying process),
there was no recourse but to start all over
again. It was still possible, with appropriate
help, to complete a new presentation in
twenty-four hours, provided the originals
of the rubbings had been preserved:
another significant trade-off of the rubbing
method.
Instruments: As strange as it may appear,
in a country entirely committed to the
metric system, a system it was so proud of
having invented and imposed so successfully,
it believed, upon all ways of life in its
entire world of influence, the relatively
secondary role played by the calibrated
scale as a drafting instrument remains a
puzzling fact, especially in an activity so intimately
related to dimensioning as the
field of architecture. That beyond the pencil
(and the pen), the one instrument sharing
the lime light, with the T-square and
45" triangle, was to be a pair of dividers is
not surprising when one considers the
basic shortcoming of the decimal system,
that is, its inability to respond to the requirement
of tripartite division, a basic
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tenet of a system of architectural composition
based on the axis and its corollary:
bilateral symmetry.
It should also be remembered that no
Ecole's program, beyond merely stating
the maximum overall dimensions of the
project at hand and the scale at which it was
to be presented, cared to even give exact
desirable sizes pertaining to the functions
of elements to be accommodated. The
governing factors, in a plan arrangement
exercise, was the determination of what
relative importance was to be given to the
program's enumerated parts, and, in elevation
studies, to the overall proportions
given to its various parts.
Exact sizes were never a consideration.
In fact, save for the construction problem
and the dipl6me, no dimensions were
ever indicated upon the drawings. It was,
therefore, deemed to be of no importance
whether a bay size was to be of an even
amount of rounded meters, or centimeters
for that matter. After all, weren't all the
great examples of past, whether Greek,
Egyptian, Gothic or Renaissance, or Italian
or even French, dimensioned in feet of one
kind or another, bearing therefore very little,
if not all, relation to meter measurements?
One can readily understand why,
under such circumstances, dividers were
preferred to a drafting scale when divisions
in equal parts or incremental additions
were called for.
T-squares and triangles being handmanufactured
and made of wood, thus susceptible
to warping and denting (in spite of
being sometimes bound in ebony as an
extra precaution), differed from one
another. Using opposite faces of a triangle
would bring different results. The uneveness
of drafting board edges and sides of
stretchers were other sources of frustration
to those seeking precision in their
drafting. Whereas adjustable T-squares
made corrections possible, they offered at
the same time another chance of error.
The 45' triangle was not only useful; it
was vital, in not only facilitating 90' rela-
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tionships but also providing an easy way of
determining center lines, maintaining
identical relationships when turning 90'
corners in a classical fashion and, of course,
casting shadows in accordance with the
prescribed 45' angle. That the 30'/60' triangle,
while indeed in existence and part of
the students' instrument panoply, was not
much used can be demonstrated by the
quasi-total lack of evidence of any influence
such a tool might have had on the students'
design solutions. The adjustable triangle,
it should be remembered, made its
belated appearance upon the Ecole's scene
only after World War II.
An array of ruling pens of different degrees
of thinness and compasses completed
the assortment of precision instruments
available. Among these, the most
precious in the student's possession if he
could afford it, was a pair of proportional
dividers, a tool enormously useful in the
enlargement of thumbnail sketches to presentation
size drawings, especially in the
cases when the former had not been drawn
exactly to scale. Proportional dividers
made it also possible to borrow elements
when deemed desirable and applicable
from available documents and their transfer,
in part or in whole, to the student's
own project.
Conclusion
The above description should clearly indicate
the Ecole's conception of its role as an
educational institution. It never attempted
to nor ever had the pretention of teaching
architecture: it was not a professional
school by any stretch of the imagination.
What institution whose curriculum never
required more than two exercises requiring
the drawing of wall sections would ever
aspire to such a reputation? The Ecole, in
the mold of many a French institution of
higher learning, concerned itself with the
shaping and training of minds: it aspired to
teach future architects how to think, architecturally;
and by introducing them to a
carefully devised multiplicity of exercises
exposed them, time and again, to the exercise
of judgement.
The Ecole sought to prepare its students
to become architects: it knew, only too well,
that the only valid environment in which
such a proficiency could be achieved was
that of an architectural office, and that the
only place for them to learn how to put a
building together was the construction
site.
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"A Hunting Lodg
a projetfrom the
sentation display
entourages--Butler, a New York architect. 17
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