Drawing and Visual Sociology of Architectural Space in the Age of Enlightenment
Set of five drawings (1779), made by the architect François Joseph Bélanger (1744–1818), for the Parisian Theatre for the Comédie Italienne.
To solve the functional problems of the Parisian theatre for the Comédie Italienne (1717), the set of five drawings (two plans, two sections and one elevation) dated c. 1779, made by the architect François Joseph Bélanger (1744–1818), reconcile the technical rigour of the orthogonal projections of volumes and shadows, with the graphic quality of chiaroscuro, of depth simulation and descriptive detail. In addition to execution and method functions, the representation in the drawings is a social portrait of the late eighteenth century, with renewed demands and collective aspirations.
The theatre, as an infrastructure of culture and urban leisure, is a place that brings together many people, spaces, and functions. From the street access to the scale of the auditorium, a sequence of social paths is formed between atriums, corridors and stairs, where one stops, talks, parades, crosses eyes or conspires. Bélanger is interested in drawing the spirit of this social action that multiplies in successive planes and transition zones — a space of flows (Fig.1).
With experience in public and private commissions (1), the new theatre is designed for modern habits. It focuses on customers, devaluing the stage and the actors’ space, in a theatre that opens up to the city and the spectator as an actor (2). The stage is no longer in the centre, and the sections don’t have stage details (Fig.2). The drawings reflect concerns with public comfort, whether it is the approach of carriages, the presence of guards, places of conviviality, panoramic balconies, foyer and waiting areas, covered areas of protection, and dimensions to ensure safety in fire evacuation.
People and statues are intertwined in animation, poses, and gestures in a spatial dynamic on different building floors (interior and exterior), fragmenting angles and perspectives. Among galleries, audiences and boxes, the movement of people determines the visual sociology of architectural space and introduces the dimension of time and life. Perhaps one may question the excess of people or the overlapping, but the meticulous detail of the design of the garments and draperies adds to the three-dimensional simulation.
At the end of the eighteenth century, architectural drawing had informative functions and visual attraction for clients, and the L’Académie Royale d’Architecture’s pedagogical methods valued the importance of the graphic presentation of projects (3). “Presentation drawings became necessary instruments, persuading with seductive illusion, describing the intention of an architectural proposal. Drawings were a way to obtain a client’s approval and funding” (4).
Thus, inspired by embellishment tricks, scenography and pictorial effects, architects consciously elaborate an architecture of paper (5). This is not a utopian drawing or invention of architectural images, as Ledoux, Boullée, or Lequeu did, where people are absent or overwhelmed by the scale of fictional architecture. Nor do they resemble Piranesi’s nostalgic capriccios. In Bélanger, the drawings are closer to Palladio or Guarini, and the monumentality of the architecture accompanies the sense of elevation and individual and collective importance of those in the space (Fig.3). His travels to England and his high interest in English gardens and Palladian-inspired architecture are well known (6).
In a renewed (neo)classical discourse of regularity, axial symmetry, order and amplitude of porticoes and colonnades (Fig.4), we can note the influence of the English tradition of adding perspective to orthogonal projection to increase the experience of spatiality, which was already frequent among French architects, such as Louis-Denis Le Camus, Charles de Wailly and Bernard Poyet.
In sheets, the size of the arm (on average c. 350 x 650 mm), the draughtsperson’s virtuosity is also impressive in the rich composition of architectural, constructive and decorative details, in addition to the control of the wash and the palette of shadows and shades of grey. The softness of the wash’s contrast increases legibility, and the convention of the 45-degree angle shadows allows the depth to be represented. Furthermore, it establishes a means of comparison and serial reading through visual coherence among plan, section and elevation (7).
(1) Namely with the architect Claude-Jean-Baptiste Jallier de Savault (1739–1806), who met at the Royal Opera of Versailles and had already worked together, in 1772, at a project for the theatre of Comédie Italienne (which was not chosen). See Alexia Lebeurre and Claire Ollagnier (dir.), François-Joseph Bélanger: Artiste Architecte (1744–1818), Paris: Editions Picard, 2021, p. 29.
(2) Basile Baudez and Nicholas Olsberg, A Civic Utopia. Architecture and the City in France, 1765–1837, London: Drawing Matter, 2016, p. 25.
(3) Basile Baudez, ‘Autonomie du dessin d’architecture «Un langage sensible qui parle aux yeux»: dessins d’architecture au Siècle des lumières’, in Emmanuelle Brugerolles (dir.), De l’alcôve aux barricades, dessiner au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: ENSBA, 2016, p. 319.
(4) Kedra Schank Smith, Architect’s Drawings, London and New York: Architectural Press, Routledge, 2005, p. 48.
(5) Roland Recht, Le Dessin d’architecture — Origine et fonctions, Paris: Adam Biro, 1995, p. 146.
(6) Cf. Janine Barrier, ‘Les voyages outre-Manche de François-Joseph Bélanger’, in Histoire de l’art, 12, 1990, p. 37–48.
(7) Baudez, op. cit., p. 321.
