Biography

French architect. By 1676 de Cotte was working in the office of Jules Hardouin-Mansart who became premier architecte to Louis XIV. De Cotte became Mansart's most valued assistant in the Service des Bâtiments du Roi.

In 1689 he traveled to Italy with Ange-Jacques Gabriel. When Hardouin-Mansart was named surintendant des bâtiments in 1699, he enlarged the Bureau de Dessins, creating three offices in Versailles, Paris, and Marly. De Cotte became architecte ordinaire (second in command) and director of both the Département de Paris and the Académie Royale d'Architecture. He was named "premier architecte du roi" in 1708, a position he held for twenty-five years.

De Cotte run a well-organized architectural office, he was always working on many building projects simultaneously; among them were the plans for palaces of Würzburg, Brühl, and Schleissheim and the construction of the Palacio Real in Madrid and the Rivoli Chateau near Turin.