Ernest Sanson

Hôtel de Breteuil, now the Irish Embassy, Paris, 1902
International Temple (Belmont House), Washington, DC, 1900

Paul Ernest Sanson (Paris, 12 May 1836 – Paris, 15 January 1918) was a French architect trained in the Beaux-Arts manner.

Sanson entered the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris at the age of eighteen, and followed the courses offered by Émile Gilbert. Having received his diploma in 1861, he apprenticed first in the office of Denis-Louis Destors and Charles-Auguste Questel and then with Antoine-Nicolas Bailly, who passed his practice to Sanson when he retired in 1865. Sanson quickly made a grand reputation among aristocrats and the rich haute bourgeoisie for his châteaux and grand Parisian town houses, or hôtels particuliers. He took into his practice his son Maurice Pierre (1864–1913), Victor-Guillaume Bariller and René Sergent. The firm's offices were successively at 43, rue de Saint-Pétersbourg, 48, rue d'Anjou and 25, rue de Lubeck, Paris.

Sanson distinguished himself with his tasteful residences in the grand manner, which combined the great architectural tradition of French design of Mansart and Gabriel, with modern amenities of plumbing, heating, and the discreet separation of owners and guests from the supporting staff. He outclassed his rivals in the field by his deft manipulation of classical architectural vocabulary, and the sureness of his taste during an age characterised by architectural excess.

In 1884, Sanson received the grande médaille d'argent for residential architecture bestowed by the Société centrale des architectes; it was followed in 1908, by the Société's grande médaille d'or. In 1911, he was received a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.

In 1861, Sanson married Marie-Caroline Scelles, with whom he had two sons, Maurice Pierre (1864–1913) and Louis Charles (1866–1917).

Principal architectural commissions

Outside France Sanson worked in Belgium, New York, Madrid, Washington, Buenos Aires and Córdoba, Argentina.

Selected works outside France

Further reading

See also

Place des États-Unis

Notes

  1. ↑ M. Tullio Deromedi, the construction entrepreneur who bought the Palais Rose from the five co-heirs of the duchesse de Talleyrand (1875-1961) and demolished it, reserved some architectural elements whicxh he reused at his property at Pontgouin near Chartres: the marble treads of the escalier d'honneur, the balustrades and the white marble pool (Vincent Bouvet, "Roses pour un Palais défunt", Monuments Historiques 108:21-26).
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