Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806) is the "boldest and most extreme" (Nikolaus Pevsner) French revolutionary architect. Since the 1930s, when he was rediscovered by Emil Kaufmann in the famous study "From Ledoux to Le Corbusier," his visionary but widely realized buildings have served as a source of inspiration for unusual designs. His famous tollgates are familiar to every cultured traveler to Paris, and the TV film on the Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans has also brought fresh proof of his popular appeal.

Author Biography

The author, Anthony Vidler, is professor of architecture at The Cooper Union in New York. In the course of his career at Princeton University, UCLA, and Cornell University, he has become one of the great contemporary historians and theorists of architecture.