Architecture, Print Culture and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century France

摘要

One of the pleasures of studying eighteenth-century French architecture is encountering the range of publications that sought to engage a popular audience in architectural criticism. Among the books that had such aspirations in the 1750s are two available today in English translation: Mare-Antoine Laugier's Essai sur l'architecture (1753, rev, ed.rn1755), with its iconic frontispiece of the primitive hut engraved by Charles Eisen, and Jean-Francois Bastide's tale of architecture and seduction, La Petite Maison, whichrnfirst appeared in 1758 in the journal Le Nou-veau Spectateur, one of the more than 115 French periodicals available at midcentury.