Architecture Moderne ou L'Art de bien Bâtir pour toutes sortes de personnes tant pour les maisons des particuliers que pour le palais [...]

Two parts in one volume, 4to (280x215 mm). [8], 96; 59, [2]; 44, 60 ;74, [2] pp. with [6] engraved plates in volume one (including the frontispiece) and [144] engraved plates in volume two (many folding). Collation: a⁴ A-M⁴ A⁴-H² A⁴-F² A⁴-K². The authorship of the work is alternatively attributed to Briseux alone, to Briseaux and Jean Courtonne (Thieme Becker), or to Courtonne alone (Cicognara 482). In volume 2, the unsigned plates 1-130 are by G. Tiercelet; 131-144 are signed by J. Courtonne as designer. Frontispiece engraved by Claude Lucas in vol. 1; engraved frontispiece added in vol. 2. Woodcut historiated initials, head - and tail-pieces (some of them signed: "Papillon inv et fecit"). Contemporary half-calf, richly gilt spine with raised bands and morocco lettering piece, red edges (worn and rubbed, top of the spine repaired, bottom of the spine damaged). Occasionally slightly browned, but overall a good, genuine copy. 

First edition. Attributed primarily to the French architect, mathematician and theorist Charles-Étienne Briseux, and with significant contributions from the publisher Claude Jombert, Architecture Moderne is a substantial two-volume treatise representing a deliberate ideological departure from the classical orthodoxy that had dominated European architecture since the Renaissance. It redirects the focus of architectural theory away from the aesthetic of state propaganda and the sun king, and onto the realities of urban and rural life in the early Enlightenment. The book's ultimate objective is encapsulated in its subtitle: to democratise the sophisticated art of structural design and elegant construction, making it accessible and practical 'for all kinds of people', from the emerging haute bourgeoisie and financial elites to modest landowners. The volume is divided into five sections: De la construction & de l'employ des materiaux; De la distribution de toutes sortes de places; De la maniere de faire les devis; Du toisé des bâtimens selon la coûtume de Paris; Des us & coûtumes concernant les bâtimens & rapports des jurez expert. 

The overarching theme of the treatise is the elevation of commodité (the French concept of domestic comfort, spatial efficiency and interior convenience) to a status equal to or even greater than the traditional classical virtues of soliditas and venustas. With mathematical precision, the author argues that a building cannot be considered successful if its occupants are uncomfortable, regardless of how perfectly its exterior matches the ancient Greek or Roman orders. Volume One serves as a comprehensive theoretical and technical manual, systematically covering topics ranging from the chemical composition of various mortars in unstable soils to advanced roofing techniques, carpentry, and stonemasonry. Volume Two shifts focus to an unprecedented catalogue of architectural typologies, presenting a vast array of scalable floor plans, elevations and cross-sections for townhouses and country estates. In order to legitimise this modern, pragmatic approach without completely severing ties with classical tradition, the text engages in a sophisticated intellectual dialogue with an illustrious lineage of European theorists. The author has a great deal of respect for the academic foundations laid by François Blondel, the first director of the Académie Royale d'Architecture, particularly with regard to the mathematics of architectural proportion. However, he refines and updates the practical urban building methodologies established by Pierre Bullet in Architecture Pratique (1691), adapting them to the 18th-century Parisian market. The american architectural historian Dora Wiebenson (1926 - 2019) describes Architecture Moderne as a "water-shed publication, bridging sixteenth and seventeenth century building methods and designs from the simple to rococo models".

"The Architecture moderne, on the planning and contruction of domestic architecture, marks a watershed between sixteenth- and seventeenth-century publications on models for houses of all sizes and eighteenth-century rococo house publications with their emphasis on the design and construction of homes for the well-to-do. The two volumes of the Architecture moderne, gathered together from acquisitions and commissions of its publisher, Claude Jombert, form a composite work. Its complex history is related in several contemporary sources, mainly by Jacques-François Blondel in the preface to the 1752 edition of the Architecture française, and also in the avertissement of the second (1764) edition of the Architecture moderne. From these sources it appears that Jombert acquired or commissioned fifty-six plates of models for houses. These were designed and engraved by the architect Gilles Tiercelet, who took Pierre Le Muet's Manière de bien bastir (cat. 94, 1985.61.707) as his model. To these Jombert added four projects designed and illustrated by Jean Courtonne, who had originally published them in the final section of his Traité de la perspective. Jombert had acquired the Traité along with other publications of the publishing firm of Vincent. According to these sources, Jombert, wishing to add text to enhance the published value of the illustrations, commissioned various architects to do the writing. Although he was generally disappointed with the completed essays, he selected a few. Five of them form the contents of Volume 1: construction and building materials; the distribution of all kinds of places (the only essay related to the plates of Volume 2); measuring buildings; the use and customs related to construction; and a short essay by Pierre Bullet on aligning party walls. In contrast to earlier works on architectural theory, which were mainly concerned with theoretical discussions of the orders and related problems of proportioning or ornamentation, this treatise is concerned only with material related to practical problems of planning and construction, following such models as the building handbooks of Louis Savot and Bullet. Jombert produced the Architecture moderne to accommodate the modern house owner and builder, because, according to the introduction, no comprehensive study on planning had appeared for the last sixty years. Jombert also notes that little had been printed during this time on decoration and distribution. Courtonne divides his section on "Architecture," in his treatise on perspective, into these same two themes. The match of these divisions with those mentioned in other publications, suggests that Courtonne may have contributed several of the essays as well as the illustrations for the four final house models of Volume 2. In the 1720, new concepts of taste and a modern desire for convenience had opened the way for a new type of architectural publication, and the Architecture moderne is one experiment in this development. But although Jombert foresaw the need for an innovative treatise on the house, he could turn for models only to Le Muet's Manière de bien bastir, first published over a century earlier, and to Savot's and Bullet's handbooks, responses to early seventeenth-century needs. Savot's handbook appeared at the same time as Le Muet's Manière; Bullet's handbook, which appeared at the end of the century, is a modernization of the type. Not only were the sixty models based on Le Muet's models, but even the subtitle of the Architecture moderne, l'art de bien bâtir pour toutes sortes de personnes, is taken from the earlier title. Despite the 1764 reprint of the Architecture moderne, the work appears old-fashioned in comparison with the stylish contributions, particularly of J. F. Blondel and also Briseux, wherein the authors no longer attempt to provide systematic solutions for all classes of society, but concentrate on the needs of the actual client, the wealthy house owner" (The Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection Volume I French Books, Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, Washington-New York, 1993, pp. 91-92).

OCLC, 800802538; Brunet I, 1261; Cicognara, 482 and 531; Journal of the Soc. of Architectural Historians, vol. 18, 1959, pp. 60-62; Millard Colllection, no. 40.

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