Claude Nicolas Ledoux Et La Saline Royale D'arc-Et-Senans

New expanded edition

Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans stands out for its function and architecture: a factory designed to produce salt, it was the first monumental factory in Europe, commissioned in 1773, during the lifetime of Louis XV, and commissioned in 1778. Its construction was entrusted to Claude Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806), assistant to the inspector of the Lorraine and Franche-Comté salt works, who had previously caused a sensation in the capital with a number of surprising houses. Aspiring to more prestigious commissions, the architect innovated not only in the semi-circular plan of the saltworks, which evokes the path of the Sun, but also in the design of the ten buildings that make it up. He imagined the saltworks as the centre of a new European commercial crossroads, and to this end designed the ideal town of Chaux (named after the adjoining forest), which never saw the light of day.

This monograph places the royal saltworks back at the heart of Ledoux's singular oeuvre, which also includes - at least in part - the barriers of Paris (including those of Enfer, Trône, La Villette and Monceau), the pavilion at Louveciennes built for Mme du Barry, the theatre in Besançon and the château at Bénouville.