Biography

Germain Boffrand (in full Gabriel-Germain Boffrand), French architect and writer, noted for the great variety, quantity, and quality of his work. He maintained the tradition of the Grand Style in France between Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who was born in 1646, and Ange-Jacques Gabriel, who died in 1782. His work also provided an important bridge between that of Louis Le Vau in the mid-17th century and those of the architects of the Piranesian generation of Neo-classicists in the mid-18th century, such as Etienne-Louis Boullée, whom he influenced.

Boffrand went to Paris in 1681, where, after studying sculpture for a time under François Girardon, he entered the workshop of the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. As early as 1690, he received a commission to design buildings for the king, and in 1709 he was placed in charge of the decoration of the apartments of the Hôtel de Soubise. In 1710 the princesse de Condé commissioned his enlargement of the Palais Bourbon, a project noted for the large staircase added by Boffrand.

Boffrand, best known for his Livre d'architecture (1745; "Book of Architecture"), was instrumental in spreading French taste across 18th-century Europe. He was responsible for a multitude of works, great and small, including plans for the new palace of Nantes and construction of the great altar for Nantes cathedral. He also built several private houses in Nantes and Paris. Between 1718 and 1728 Boffrand directed the work on the Arsenal in Paris and in 1722 was asked to restore the chamber of the Palais de Justice.

Boffrand also worked abroad: he built a fountain in the gardens of the favourite château of Maximilian II Emanuel, the elector of Bavaria, and assisted Balthasar Neumann in 1724 in designing the episcopal Residenz (1719-44) in Würzburg. Boffrand next restored the rose window of the transept of Notre-Dame de Paris (1725-27) and in 1727 constructed the Hospice des Enfants of the general hospital, for which he was appointed chief architect in 1728.

In 1732 he was appointed inspector general of roads and bridges of France. Boffrand's noted later achievements were his restoration (1746) of the Saint-Esprit chapel and the door he built (1748) for the cloister of Notre-Dame. In addition to his vast architectural accomplishments and the Livre d'architecture, Boffrand left Description de ce qui a été pratiqué pour fondre en bronze d 'un seul jet la figure équestre de Louis XIV (1743; "Description of What Was Done to Cast in a Single Jet the Equestrian Statue of Louis XIV").