PEYRE, Marie-Joseph
(b. 1730, Paris, d. 1785, Paris)

Biography

French architect. He began his training in Paris with Jacques-François Blondel (1705-1774) at l'École des Arts, where he met Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni and formed a lifelong friendship with Charles de Wailly. He won the Prix de Rome for architecture in 1751 and was a pensionnaire at the French Academy in Rome from 1753, where he was soon joined by de Wailly, the following year's winner, who brought with him Pierre-Louis Moreau-Desproux, whose sister Peyre eventually married. Peyre stayed in Rome until early in 1756, during the years when the students at the Academy were creating temporary projects in the new Neoclassical manner.

In Paris, he constructed, together with Charles de Wailly the Théâtre de l'Odéon, originally intended to house the Comédie Française, which, however, preferred to stay at the Théâtre-Français in the Palais Royal.

He was architect to the king, and a member of the Royal Academy of Architecture. In 1765 he published "Oeuvre d'Architecture," containing designs for a royal palace and a cathedral church.

Peyre's younger brother, Antoine-Joseph Peyre (1739-1823), and his son Antoine-Marie Peyre (1770-1843) were also architects.