Figures of Death and Life in the Architecture of Grandjean de Montigny (Paperback)

The central theme of this book is that many architectural works produced at the end of the eighteenth century in France, while programmatically distinct, incorporate images drawn from a common set of ideas and images. One observes that during a long historical period, philosophical, religious and even secular ideas - reproducing constant and repetitive imaginative narratives - coalesce around certain central themes: the representation of an earthly pilgrimage that, after conquering a symbolic path of sins and difficulties, arrives at a "space" that represents liberation; images of the garden of Eden, of the primitive ladder to the heavens, and of the spatial "ambitus" that forms the imagined illustration to the ancient text of the "Tabula Cebetis." To illustrate these concepts, two exemplary architectural models executed by the French architect Auguste-Henry-Victor Grandjean de Montigny (Paris, 1776-Rio de Janeiro, 1850) are utilized: an Elyse or Cimitire, selected for the Academy's 1799 Grand Prix competition and his house built in the Gvea section of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.