Jean-Rodolphe Perronet
{{Short description|French architect and structural engineer}}
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{{Infobox engineer
|image = Musée du Louvre - Portrait de Jean-Rodolphe Perronet par Louis-Michel van Loo (1764).jpg
|image_size =
|caption = Portrait by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1764
|name = Jean-Rodolphe Perronet
|nationality = French
|birth_date = 8 October 1708
|birth_place = Suresnes, Kingdom of France
|death_date = {{death-date and age|27 February 1794|8 October 1708}}
|death_place = Paris, French Republic
|education =
|spouse =
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|significant_projects = Pont de la Concorde
|significant_design =
|significant_advance = arch bridges
|significant_awards =
}}
Jean-Rodolphe Perronet (8 October 1708 – 27 February 1794) was a French architect and structural engineer known for his many stone arch bridges. His best-known work is the Pont de la Concorde (1787).
Early life
Perronet was born in Suresnes, a suburb of Paris, on 8 October 1708.{{HDS|31602|author=Paul Bissegger|date=11 January 2011}}{{cite journal | doi=10.5169/seals-720006 | date=2012 | last1=Middleton | first1=Robin | title=The library of Jean Rodolphe Perronet | journal=Scholion: Bulletin | volume=7 | page=133 }} He was the son of David Perronet, a Swiss Guardsman from Château-d'Œx, and Marie Travers. His father later became a wine merchant and abjured Protestantism in 1709. At age 17, Perronet entered the architectural practice of Jean-Baptiste-Augustin Beausire, an engineer and maître des bâtiments to the city of Paris, as an apprentice. He was put in charge of the design and construction of Paris's grand sewer, embankment works, and the maintenance of the banlieue's roads. In 1735, he was named sous-ingénieur (under-engineer) to Alençon and in 1736 entered the Corps des ponts et chaussées. In 1737, he became sous-ingénieur, then engineer to the généralité of Alençon.
Career
In 1747, Perronet was named director of the Bureau des dessinateurs du Roi (Royal Office of Designers), which had also just put Daniel-Charles Trudaine in charge of producing maps and plans for the kingdom. This first École des ponts et chaussées was based in the hôtel Libéral Bruant in Paris. Perronet was given the task of training bridge and road engineers and overseeing their work in the généralités in which they worked. The Bureau became the Bureau des élèves des ponts et chaussées, then in 1775 was renamed the École des ponts et chaussées. Perronet was to direct it for the rest of his life. As its organizer, inspiration, and teacher, Perronet was his students' spiritual father and used a new teaching method that seems very contemporary to modern eyes. During this time, he became friends with the Swiss bridge-builder Charles Labelye.
In 1750, Perronet was promoted to inspector general (inspecteur général), and by 1763, he had become first engineer for bridges (Premier ingénieur du Roi).Vacant, Claude. Jean Rodolphe Perronet (1708-1794): premier ingénieur du roi et directeur de l'École des ponts et chaussées. Presses Ponts et Chaussées, 2006. Perronet became a member of the Académie des sciences in 1765. Besides his bridges, between 1747 and 1791, 2500 km of roads were created or repaired under his direction. He also contributed the article Pompe à feu (fire-engine) to the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.[http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rde_0769-0886_1990_num_8_1_1057 Kafker, Frank A.: Notices sur les auteurs des 17 volumes de « discours » de l'Encyclopédie (suite et fin). Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie Année (1990) Volume 8 Numéro 8 p. 109]
In 1772, Perronet was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He died in Paris on 27 February 1794, aged 85. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1788.{{cite web | url = http://royalsociety.org/dserve/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27perronet%27%29| title = Royal Society Library Archive| publisher = Royal Society|accessdate = 2 August 2012}}
Death and legacy
He died on 27 February 1794 in Paris, aged 85. The street next to the site of the École des ponts et chaussées (delimiting Paris's 6th and 7th arrondissements) is now named after him and a statue of him, sculpted by Adrien Étienne Gaudez, has been erected on the northeast corner of the Île de Puteaux, at the foot of the pont de Neuilly (whose first stone version, built in 1772 and surviving until 1942, was his work).
Works
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| caption1=Double portrait possibly of Architect Jean-Rodolphe Perronet with his Wife by Alexander Roslin (1759), Gothenburg Museum of Art
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- 1750–1760 – Bridge at Orléans
- 1757–1765 – Bridge at Mantes
- 1758–1764 – Bridge at Trilport
- 1765–1786 – Bridge at Château-Thierry
- 1766–1769 – Pont Saint-Edne at Nogent
- 1768–1774 – Bridge at Neuilly-sur-Seine
- 1770–1771 – Pont Les Fontaines
- 1774–1785 – Bridge at Sainte-Maxence sur l'Oise
- 1775 – Bridge at {{not a typo|Biais}}-Bicheret
- 1776–1791 – Bridge at Nemours
- 1776- – Bridge at Mirepoix, Ariege
- 1784–1787 – Bridge at Brunoy
- 1786–1787 – Bridge at Rosoy
- 1786–1791 – Pont Louis XVI, later renamed Pont de la Concorde, Paris
Sources
- {{in lang|fr}} Guy Coriono, 250 ans de l’École des Ponts en cent portraits, Paris, Presses de l’École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 1997, p. 37 and following.
- {{in lang|fr}} M. Guillot, "Un destin helvétique, Jean-Rodophe Perronet et sa famille suresnoise (1708–1794)" in Les gardes suisses et leurs familles au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles en région parisienne, p. 108–116.
- {{in lang|fr}} Yvon Michel, "Jean-Rodolphe Perronet (1708–1794)" in Monuments Historiques, Paris, April–June 1987, nos 150–151, p. 81–86.
- {{in lang|fr}} Claude Vacant, Jean-Rodolphe Perronet (1708–1794). Premier inégénieur du Roi et directeur de l'École des ponts et chaussées, Paris, Presses de l'École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 2006. 24 cm, 344 p., ill.
External links
{{reflist}}
- {{in lang|fr}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927012228/http://www.enpc.fr/fr/enpc/historique/bio_perronet.htm Biography (EPC)]
- {{in lang|fr}} [http://fr.structurae.de/persons/data/index.cfm?id=d000167 Biography (Structurae)]
- {{in lang|fr}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20070926220704/http://portail.atilf.fr/cgi-bin/getobject_?a.45%3A6%3A1.%2Fvar%2Fartfla%2Fencyclopedie%2Ftextdata%2FIMAGE%2F%2F Jean-Rodolphe Perronet : article Pompe à feu in the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers]
- [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9059325/Jean-Perronet Britannica]
{{Authority control (arts)}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perronet, Jean-Rodolphe}}
Category:French people of Swiss descent
Category:18th-century French architects
Category:French bridge engineers
Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Category:Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Category:Members of the Académie royale d'architecture
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society
Category:Contributors to the Encyclopédie (1751–1772)