Architecture parlante

“Temple of the Earth”, drawing by Jean-Jacques Lequeu from his manuscript Architecture Civile.

Architecture parlante (French: speaking architecture) is architecture that explains its own function or identity.

The phrase was originally associated with Claude Nicolas Ledoux, and was extended to other Paris-trained architects of the Revolutionary period, Étienne-Louis Boullée, and Jean-Jacques Lequeu.[1] Emil Kaufmann traced its first use to an anonymous critical essay with Ledoux's work as the subject, written for Magasin pittoresque in 1852, and entitled "Etudes d'architecture en France".[2]

  1. ^ Emil Kaufmann. Three Revolutionary Architects: Boullée, Ledoux, and Lequeu. American Philosophical Society, 1952. Page 447.
  2. ^ Emil Kaufmann. Architecture In The Age Of Reason Baroque and Post-Baroque in England, Italy, and France. Harvard University Press, 1955. Pages 130,and 251.