Ledoux, Claude-Nicolas

Ledoux, Claude-Nicolas

(born March 21, 1736, Dormans-sur-Marne, France—died Nov. 19, 1806, Paris) French architect. In the 1760s and early 1770s he designed private houses in an innovative Neoclassical style, among them Madame du Barry's famous château at Louveciennes (1771–73). In the mid 1770s he planned a new saltworks and surrounding town at the Salines de Chaux, Arc-et-Senans; the design, in which rings of workers' dwellings enclosed a central factory, was designed both to facilitate production and ensure healthy conditions for the workers. His theatre at Besançon (1771–73) was revolutionary in its provision of seats for the general public as well as the upper classes. The elaborate barrières (tollhouses) he designed for Paris (1785–89) were ruinously expensive, and Ledoux was removed from the project. Arrested during the French Revolution, he did not practice architecture after his release.