First director of the Academie royale d'architecture, Francois Blondel established a lasting model for architectural education that helped transform a still largely medieval profession into the one we recognize today. Most well known for his 1676 urban plan of Paris, Blondel is also celebrated as a mathematician, scientist, and scholar. Few figures are more representative of the close affinity between architecture and the "new science" of the seventeenth century. The first full-length study in English to appear on this polymath, this book adds to the scholarship on early modern architectural history and particularly on French classicism under Louis XIV and his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. It studies early modern science and technology, Baroque court culture, and the development of the discipline of architecture.

First director of the AcadA(c)mie royale da (TM)architecture, FranAois Blondel established a lasting model for architectural education that helped transform a still largely medieval profession into the one we recognize today.

Most well known for his 1676 urban plan of Paris, Blondel is also celebrated as a mathematician, scientist, and scholar. Few figures are more representative of the close affinity between architecture and the "new science" of the seventeenth century.

The first full-length study in English to appear on this polymath, this book adds to the scholarship on early modern architectural history and particularly on French classicism under Louis XIV and his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. It studies early modern science and technology, Baroque court culture, and the development of the discipline of architecture.

This volume explores the mathematical character of architectural practice in diverse pre- and early modern contexts.It takes an explicitly interdisciplinary approach, which unites scholarship in early modern architecture with recent work in the history of science, in particular, on the role of practice in the scientific revolution .As a contribution to architectural history, the volume contextualizes design and construction in terms of contemporary mathematical knowledge, attendant forms of mathematical practice, and relevant social distinctions between the mathematical professions.As a contribution to the history of science, the volume presents a series of micro-historical studies that highlight issues of process, materiality, and knowledge production in specific, situated, practical contexts.Our approach sees the designer s studio, the stone-yard, the drawing floor, and construction site not merely as places where the architectural object takes shape, but where mathematical knowledge itself is deployed, exchanged, and amplified among various participants in the building process."

This volume explores the mathematical character of architectural practice in diverse pre- and early modern contexts. It takes an explicitly interdisciplinary approach, which unites scholarship in early modern architecture with recent work in the history of science, in particular, on the role of practice in the “scientific revolution�. As a contribution to architectural history, the volume contextualizes design and construction in terms of contemporary mathematical knowledge, attendant forms of mathematical practice, and relevant social distinctions between the mathematical professions. As a contribution to the history of science, the volume presents a series of micro-historical studies that highlight issues of process, materiality, and knowledge production in specific, situated, practical contexts. Our approach sees the designer’s studio, the stone-yard, the drawing floor, and construction site not merely as places where the architectural object takes shape, but where mathematical knowledge itself is deployed, exchanged, and amplified among various participants in the building process.