Jacques-Germain Soufflot
Soufflot studied antiquity in Italy and measured the temples at Paestum. In the Panthéon he sought to combine the lightness of Gothic with Greek clarity – one of the first great works of neoclassicism.
Jacques-Germain Soufflot was born in 1713 in Irancy near Auxerre in Burgundy, the son of a lawyer. He was meant to follow his father’s career but was drawn to architecture and went to Rome, where from 1731 he spent several years, partly at the French Academy, studying ancient and modern buildings. On his return he settled in Lyon, where he quickly became the city’s leading architect. He designed the long façade of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital along the Rhône, the Loge du Change exchange and a new theatre. In 1749–1751 he travelled to Italy as companion to the Marquis de Marigny, the future Superintendent of the King’s Buildings, and visited, among other places, the Greek temples at Paestum.
The journey gave Soufflot a strong position when Marigny took charge of the royal building works. In 1755 he was commissioned to design a new church for Sainte-Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris. The foundation stone was laid by Louis XV in 1764. The building has a Greek-cross plan and a tall dome, but the interior is carried by free-standing Corinthian columns instead of heavy piers. Soufflot wanted to combine the light construction of Gothic with the clear forms of antiquity, and he used concealed iron reinforcements in the stone. It became one of the first great neoclassical works in Europe. He also designed the Faculty of Law on the same square.
Soufflot died in 1780, and the church was completed in 1790 by his assistant Jean-Baptiste Rondelet after settlement and cracks had raised concerns about the structure. During the Revolution it became a national mausoleum, the Panthéon, where France’s great men and women are buried. The building became a model for domed churches and parliament buildings in several countries. Soufflot helped move French architecture from the Rococo to a stricter, antique-inspired classicism. This new classicism reached Sweden under Gustav III, when architects such as Adelcrantz, Tempelman and the Frenchman Louis Jean Desprez drew inspiration from Paris, and French-trained Swedes spread academic classicism through the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.