Arc de Triomphe

Jean-François-Thérèse Chalgrin was a French architect, best known for his design for the Arc de Triomphe, Paris. His neoclassic orientation was established from his early studies with the prophet of neoclassicism Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni and with the radical classicist... Étienne-Louis Boullée in Paris and through his Prix de Rome sojourn as a pensionnaire of the French Academy in Rome. His time in Rome coincided with a fervent new interest in Classicism among the young French pensionnaires, under the influences of Piranesi and the publications of Winckelmann. Returning to Paris, he was quickly given an appointment as an inspector of public works for the city of Paris, under the architect Pierre-Louis Moreau-Desproux, whose own time at the French Academy in Rome had predisposed him to the new style. In this official capacity he oversaw the construction of Ange-Jacques Gabriel's Hôtel Saint-Florentin in the rue Saint-Florentin, where Chalgrin was able to design the neoclassical gateway to the cour d'honneur. In 1764 he presented his uncompromisingly neoclassical plans for the Church of St.
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