Jean-Rodolphe Perronet

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Jean-Rodolphe Perronet

Jean-Rodolphe Perronet (born October 27, 1708 in Suresnes , † February 27, 1794 in Paris ) was a French architect and civil engineer of modern stone bridge construction, who is known for his stone arch bridges . His most famous work is the Pont de la Concorde from 1787.

life and work

He was the son of a Swiss guardsman from France, David Perronet (* 1685), originally from Vevey , and his wife Marie. At the age of 17 he joined the company of Jean Beausire (1651–1743) as an apprentice after the death of his father . He dealt with the planning and construction of the Paris sewage system, the construction of dams and the maintenance of the streets in the banlieue . In 1735 he was appointed sub-engineer, sous-ingénieur of Alençon and in 1736 he joined the Corps des ponts et chaussées . In 1737 he became sous-ingénieur , then engineer of the Généralité (district administration) of Alençon.

In 1747 Perronet was appointed director of the royal drawing bureau (Bureau des dessinateurs du Roi), which had also just commissioned Daniel-Charles Trudaine (1703–1769) to produce maps and plans for the kingdom. This first École des ponts et chaussées was domiciled in the Hôtel Libéral Bruant in Paris. Perronet's job was to train bridge and road construction engineers and to supervise their work. The office became the "Bureau des élèves des ponts et chaussées" (Bureau des élèves des ponts et chaussées), then in 1775 it was renamed the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (School of Bridge and Road Construction). Their leader, inspirer and teacher Perronet was a true spiritual father to his students and he used a new teaching method that is very modern today. During this time he made friends with the Swiss bridge builder Charles Labelye (1705–1781), the builder of the Westminster Bridge .

Double portrait of architect Jean-Rodolphe Perronet with his wife by Alexander Roslin (1759)
in the Gothenburg Museum of Art

Perronet expressly turned away from the view, which was also described by Hubert Gautier and still prevailing at the time, that the pier strength must be about a fifth of the span of the bridge arch. It is more important to provide carefully executed foundations and to leave as much space as possible for the water flowing through. The first practical implementation of this theory was his Pont de Neuilly (1774, Neuilly-sur-Seine ) with pillar strengths of only one ninth of the span of 39 m each for the five individual arches. He also reintroduced cow horns (cornes de vache) on the edges of the stone arches, which gave them a flatter shape. Of 21 major bridge designs, mostly over the Loire and Seine, he carried out 13 under personal construction supervision, most recently the Pont de la Concorde , built from 1787 to 1791 in Paris and still in existence today. He was also known for his efficient organization of construction sites down to the last detail. He developed complicated falsework and invented new construction equipment such as tilting construction trailers. For the pillar foundations of the Pont de Neuilly, he developed watertight box dams, which he drained inside with water wheels. Overall, he was able to reduce the construction time for the Pont de Neuilly from an estimated ten to six years. The sensational topping-out ceremony in the presence of the king, with the removal of the falsework, which fell into the Seine with a great din, was on September 22nd, 1772. The king was the first to drive his carriage over the bridge. However, Peronnet did not take any chances and had lowered the falsework days before, which was hardly visible from the outside. The bridge was opened to traffic in 1774 and was considered exemplary in Europe. In 1956 it was demolished.

In addition to his bridges, 2,500 km of roads were built or repaired under his direction between 1747 and 1791. As an encyclopedist , he also contributed the article Pompe à feu ( fire pump ) to the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers . He planned the construction of the Canal du Bourgogne, which was not completed until 1843, and the extensive water supply of Paris.

In 1763 he was appointed the king's first engineer (premier ingénieur du roi) and in 1765 he was accepted as a member (member of the associate) of the Academy of Sciences Académie des sciences . In 1772 Perronet was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and in 1788 a member ( Fellow ) of the Royal Society . In 1790 he became a foreign member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

The street directly on the École des ponts et chaussées (which separates the 6th and 7th arrondissement in Paris) is named after him today. A statue of him was erected in the northeast corner of the Île de Puteaux in Neuilly-sur-Seine , at the foot of the Pont de Neuilly , the first stone version of which he had built in 1768–1774 and which lasted until 1942.

His assistant was Gaspard de Prony from 1780 .

His works were published in German translation in 1820 by Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Dietlein .

plant

bridges

  • 1763: Pont George V in Orléans (acceptance and accounting)
  • 1757–1765: Bridge in Mantes
  • 1758–1764: Bridge at Trilport
  • 1765–1786: Bridge in Château-Thierry
  • 1766–1769: Pont Saint-Edne in Nogent
  • 1768–1774: Pont de Neuilly in Neuilly-sur-Seine
  • 1770-1771: Pont Les Fontaines
  • 1774–1785: Bridge in Sainte-Maxence sur l'Oise
  • 1775: Bridge in Biais-Bicheret
  • 1776–1791: Bridge at Nemours
  • 1784–1787: Bridge in Brunoy
  • 1786–1787: Bridge in Rosoy
  • 1786–1791: Pont Louis XVI, later renamed Pont de la Concorde , Paris

Publications

literature

Web links

Commons : Category: Jean-Rodolphe Perronet  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Jean-Rodolphe Perronet  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frank A. Kafker: Notices sur les auteurs of 17 volumes de "discours" de l'Encyclopédie. Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie Année (1990) Volume 8 Numéro 8 p.109
  2. ^ 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 , pp. 108–116.
  3. ↑ Guy Coriono, 250 ans de l'École des Ponts en cent portraits , Paris, Presses de l'École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 1997, p. 37f
  4. ^ 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 pp.
  5. ↑ Biograpie of Peronnet Bernd fog
  6. ^ Yvon Michel, "Jean-Rodolphe Perronet (1708-1794)" in Monuments Historiques , Paris, April-June 1987, nos 150-151, pp. 81-86.
personal data
SURNAME Perronet, Jean-Rodolphe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French architect and civil engineer of modern stone bridge construction
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1708
PLACE OF BIRTH Suresnes
DATE OF DEATH February 27, 1794
Place of death Paris