MONTOYER, Louis Joseph

(b. 1749 Mariemont, d. 1811 Wien)

Flemish architect. He worked in Brussels as an architect and building contractor from 1778 onwards. Although he has been credited as the architect of the Royal Palace of Laeken, later research made clear he was merely executing the designs of other architects such as Charles de Wailly. In Brussels he built the Théâtre Royal du Parc (the Parktheater) in 1782.

In 1795 he came to Vienna with Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen, who had already appointed him his court architect in 1780. There he first worked on rebuilding the duke’s palace, now known as the Albertina. He also built the Ceremonial Hall at the Hofburg, connecting the Leopoldian part of the building with the old Imperial Palace. Also in Vienna, Montoyer built the Palais Rasumofsky for the former Russian ambassador Andrey Razumofsky.

On 25 September 1805 he was made an honorary citizen of Vienna, and in 1807 he was appointed court architect to Franz II.

Exterior view

A monumental, Neoclassical architecture of the Western European type became part of Viennese architecture with the proclamation of the Austrian Empire by Franz II (I) in 1804.

Montoyer used columns in a fa�ade when he designed a Neo-Palladian palace for the Russian envoy, Prince Rasumofsky, from 1803.

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Exterior view

Built in 1782 to plans by the architect Louis Montoyer, the Th�âtre du Parc was at first an annexe to the Th�âtre de la Monnaie, the Parc used for plays featuring young actors, as a sort of drama school for La Monnaie. It was closed in 1807 by Napoleon’s decree on the theatres, but re-opened in 1814.

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Interior view

The photo shows the Festival Hall of the Palais Rasumofsky. It is patterned on the ceremonial hall, in which freestanding columns support a coffered ceiling, which Montoyer built previously in the Hofburg.

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