Lequeu: An Architectural Enigma

376 Pages·1986·36.139 MB·English

by  Philippe Duboy, Robin Middleton

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AN
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AN ARCHITECTURAL ENIGMA
BY
PHILIPPE DUBOY
FOREWORDBY ROBIN MIDDLETON
THE MIT PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
A Carlo pour Bastiano
Translated from the French by Francis Scarfe
Additional translation by Brad Divitt
Publishers note
Quotations from the writings of Jean Jacques Lequeu are given in French,
w ith deletions and insertions signalled by the use of parentheses.
The captions to the illustrations in the text carry references
to the Inventory of Lequeu Material thus: ( 13).
The titles of the drawings and other documents in the Plates, pp. 108-348,
are given in translation in the Notes on the Plates.
On pp. 1 and 2
J. J. Lequeu, Architecture Civile, details of plates 39 bis, 33 bis
First MIT Press edition, 1987
(' 1986 by Thames and Hudson Ltd, London
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying,
recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in
writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Duboy, Philippe.
Lequeu: an architectural enigma.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Lequeu. Jean-Jacques, 1757-ca. 1825—Criticism and
interpretation. 2. Architectural drawing 18th century—
F'rance. I. Title.
NA2707.L47D8 1986 72o'.22'2 86-7170
ISBN 0-262-04086-7
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
FOREWORD BV ROBIN MIDDLETON 6
preamble: improprieties 8
1 A CERTAIN CHINESE ENCYCLOPAEDIA 14
2 TROPOLOGICAL SPACE 20
3 ORNAMENT AND CRIME
Prologue 31
The Comic Illusion of a Model: Palladio 32
Good and Ill Fortunes of Piranesi’s Theoretical Texts 47
True Happiness is in the Countryside:
Lequeu, Fourier, and Brillat-Savarin, Even 54
From Ledoux to le Corbusier:
The Rite of Neue Sachlichkeit 63
First Demountable Approximation:
Impressions of Africa 77
Duchamp, Encyclopede:
‘To have the apprentice in the sun’ (Lequeu) 78
Aunt Sally, or Knock the Lady out of Bed:
‘Use a Lequeu as an Ironing-board’ 81
Demolishing an Architect: Le Corbusier 89
Slender Appendix 102
Epilogue: Mediocrity 103
Last Demountable Approximation:
‘Make an Imprint’, The Bride 105
4 ANEMIC-CINEMA: THE PLATES
Architecture Civile 109
Nouvelle Méthode 257
Figures lascives 287
Figures et architecture 303
5 THE MOMENT TO CONCLUDE
Lequeu’s History as Experience 349
Lequeu Studies 352
Autobiography of Lequeu: Dates, 1756-1825 353
The Other Lequeux 355
INVENTORY OF LEQUEU MATERIAL 356
NOTES ON THE PLATES 3^1
INDEX 366
Foreword
J
KAN J ACQl' ES LEQUEU has for some time (at least since 1894 been
the object of critical scrutiny. His extraordinary and beautiful
drawings have served to mark the beginnings of stylistic eclecticism, of
bad taste, of picturesque asymmetry in France, of the visionary gleam
in architecture and even of the impact of freemasonry on art. A
handful and more have been reproduced in a variety of very different
contexts, on each occasion to illustrate some particular point or theme.
But Lequeu has remained little known and barely understood. Even
the dates of his birth and death have remained uncertain.
Philippe Duboy has established the date of his birth, 1757, and
provides some conjecture as to the vicissitudes of his existence, but he
cannot be said to have laid bare the life and works of this maverick
artist, meticulous and painstaking though his study might be. Indeed,
Duboy has compounded the mystery, and deliberately so. Far from
offering a tidy summary of Lequeu’s activities and a descriptive
analysis of his works, he has drawn his study deep into the realm of
Charles Fourier and his brother-in-law Anthelme Brillat-Savarin - a
utopian socialist and a gastronome - and by no other means than
inference and implication from thence to the twentieth century itself,
into the world of the Dadaists, Surrealists and Futurists, in particular
into the circles of Marcel Duchamp and of Le Corbusier.
In these chapters, whatever certainty might have been held
concerning Lequeu is dispersed altogether, perhaps for always. Duboy
resolves nothing. He probes. He teases and tantalizes. He plays a
fiendish game. But he provides nonetheless the surest basis for any
possible interpretation of the work of Lequeu and, perhaps even more
surprising, for a new and sharper perception of the activities of Marcel
Duchamp. He offers glimpses of Duchamps convolutions of mind that
will stir even the most convinced of his interpreters to rethink the
assessments they have made of such works as Le Grand Verre. Duchamp
emerges here, for the first time, as an intrepid and unwavering despiser
of Le Corbusier. Twentieth-century reputations are as much at stake
in this study as that of the eighteenth-century artist.
What Duboy offers is an extraordinary compilation, something in
the manner of those Dennis Wheatley detective novels that were so
fashionable in the 1930s, presented in the form of police dossiers, with
reports and clues all assembled together in as authentic a simulacrum
of the originals as possible, and at the end, in a sealed package, to be
opened only after you have resolved the mystery for yourself (or rather
made the attempt), the solution. Duboy’s trick, as I have already said,
is to leave out the solution. You have to rely on your own powers of
decipherment. Which means that right from the start you have to read
very carefully indeed, noting all the chapter headings and quotations,
however odd or irrelevant they might appear at the time, and
concentrating hard on the meanings and overtones of words. For
6