LE MUET, Pierre - b. 1591 Dijon, d. 1669 Paris - WGA

LE MUET, Pierre

(b. 1591 Dijon, d. 1669 Paris)

French architect and theoretician. His most important work was Manière de bastir pour toutes sortes de personnes (Manner of Building for All Sorts of People, 1623), which probably drew on Serlio’s then unpublished sixth book of Architettura, and Du Cerceau’s Trois Livres d’Architecture, especially the first book (1559). Le Muet’s book contains designs for urban dwellings for sites ranging from very small to quite large, was reprinted three times, came out in an English translation in 1670, and was superseded in 1720 by a collection of designs entitled Architecture moderne ou l’art de bien bastir pour toutes sortes de personnes.

Of the numerous Parisian town-houses he designed (many of which retained Mannerist tendencies), not much remains intact, apart from the handsome Hôtel d’Avaux (now Saint-Aignan), 71 Rue du Temple (1644-50 - which has a garden façade influenced by the Louvre and a court with façades enlivened with a Giant Order of pilasters), and the Hôtel Tubeuf, 16 Rue Vivienne (1648-54), both of which were elegant essays in Classicism. Le Muet designed the ground-plan of the Church of Nôtre-Dame-des-Victoires (1629), and from 1655 to 1666, assisted by Le Duc, succeeded Lemercier at the Val-de-Grâce, Paris, completing the conventual buildings and the upper Order and dome of the Church.

Door

The h�tel Comans d’Astry on 18 quai de B�thune was built for Thomas de Comans d’Astry, king’s adviser. It is attributed either to Pierre Le Muet or Louis Le Vau. The building has a beautifully refined door.

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Exterior view

To the second edition of his book (1647) Le Muet added plans and elevations of a few very grand h�tels which were built. These include the H�tel d’Avaux in the Rue du Temple which has emerged from its recent restoration as one of the finest seventeenth-century houses surviving in Paris. The visitor enters through a door set in a lightly rusticated concave bay and finds himself in a large court articulated on all four sides by giant Corinthian pilasters. The effect is one of extreme grandeur, foreshadowing the work of the next generation of architects.

The photo shows the court.

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Exterior view

Disfigured at the Revolution, the building was transformed into a borough hall from 1795 to 1823. After ther restoration it now houses the museum dedicated to the art and history of Judaism.

The photo shows the court.

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Exterior view

Disfigured at the Revolution, the building was transformed into a borough hall from 1795 to 1823. After ther restoration it now houses the museum dedicated to the art and history of Judaism.

The photo shows the court.

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Exterior view

Le Muet also built the smaller H�tel de Laigue in the rue Saint-Guillaume for the Marquis Geoffroy de Laigue, former aide de camp of Louis XIII. The building is almost Mansardien in its purity.

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Hôtel d'Avaux, Paris

To the second edition of his book (1647) Le Muet added plans and elevations of a few very grand h�tels which were built. These include the Hotel d’Avaux in the Rue du Temple which has emerged from its recent restoration as one of the finest seventeenth-century houses surviving in Paris. The visitor enters through a door set in a lightly rusticated concave bay and finds himself in a large court articulated on all four sides by giant Corinthian pilasters. The effect is one of extreme grandeur, foreshadowing the work of the next generation of architects.

The engraving shows the court fa�ade.

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