Étienne Sulpice Hallet

Background

Étienne S. Hallet was born on March 18, 1755, in France, the only son and eldest child of Claude Jacques Hallet, schoolmaster and clerk of that parish, and Gabrielle Robin.

Education

Hallet was trained in France and admitted in 1785 to the class of Architectes Experts-jurés du Roi 1re Colonne - a class second only to the Academicians.

Career

Hallet came to America apparently in connection with the attempt of Quesnay de Beaurepaire, in 1786 - 1788, to found his sanguinely conceived Académie des Sciences et Beaux-Arts at Richmond, with branches in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. In Quesnay's published Mémoire (1788) the name of Hallet occurs in the list of "Patrons la Nouvelle York. " The outbreak of the French Revolution put an end to the scheme of the Academy, and left Hallet stranded in America.

In 1790 Hallet was living poorly in Philadelphia, then the temporary seat of the federal government. The following year, upon the dismissal of Pierre Charles L'Enfant who had been expected to design the public buildings for the new federal capital, Thomas Jefferson, secretary of state, proposed to conduct a public competition on the lines of those he had come to know in France, and drafted a program of requirements for the Capitol building. Although this program, with the corresponding program for the President's House, was not published until the following March, Hallet had already, before the close of the year 1791, prepared and shown to Jefferson a design for the Capitol. In this first design, he created the type which was ultimately to prevail in America: a building with a tall central dome and wings for the two legislative houses. The external forms were those of the current Louis XVI style. Jefferson, in his design for the Virginia capitol in 1785, had followed a different fundamental conception and fitted the elements within the body of a rectangular classical temple. This idea he probably urged on Hallet, for in the design which Hallet submitted to the judgment of the commissioners of the federal city in July 1792 (along with one for the President's House, now lost) he adopted the temple form. The Virginia capitol had had a portico in front only.

Hallet took the final step toward the classical ideal by employing a peristyle, surrounding the whole building with columns. In thus pursuing the initiative of Jefferson, Hallet was far in advance of the trend of literal classicism abroad, where the temple had hitherto only been adopted playfully, as in garden structures. Although Hallet's temple design did not entirely satisfy Washington and the commissioners, it was the one most favored among those received up to the date fixed (July 15, 1792). Hallet was retained to make revised studies with a guarantee of expenses and encouragement of success, while certain other competitors were authorized to submit further designs.

Working now for the commissioners at Georgetown, Hallet produced several further sets of drawings, in some of which, incidentally, he was the first to adopt the form of the classic hemicycle for a modern legislative hall. First he revised his temple design, which had been thought too cramped, but the result, with fifty-foot columns, was judged too expensive. The dilemma of accommodations too small or scale too great caused the abandonment of the temple scheme. Reverting to his original idea, he made two designs with wings and a high dome. The first was regarded as not sufficiently classical. In the second he again followed a suggestion of Jefferson, that the new church of Ste. Geneviève in Paris (later the Panthéon), with its cruciform plan and monumental temple portico, offered a suitable model for the type. This design of Hallet's was seen in Philadelphia by a new competitor, William Thornton, who hastily prepared and submitted a plan with a large central dome, which was recommended by Washington and Jefferson before it was seen by the commissioners. Hallet received the £250 promised as second prize, and additional compensation for the extra designs he had made at the request of the Commission (a total of £500), as well as a lot in the city valued at £100.

He had meanwhile made a sixth design, not seen by Washington and Jefferson, in which the dome, likewise with an interior peristyle, had been enlarged and reduced in height. It was placed not over the vestibule, but over the desired conference room on the west, which was now given the form of the ancient Pantheon in Rome. When Thornton's design was received in Washington, it was subjected to criticism by Hallet and other professionals there on structural and practical grounds. Hallet was then commissioned, at a salary of £400 per year, to prepare a practicable revision of Thornton's plan and to supervise the erection of the building. The name "Stephen Hallette" on the cornerstone laid September 18, 1793, seems to indicate the pronunciation of his name by his American contemporaries. Now arose a misunderstanding, for while the authorities regarded the new design as Thornton's rendered into practical form, Hallet supposed it "owed its adoption to its total difference from the other. " It kept the dome over the western conference room, as in his sixth design. Since the recessed front which Hallet proposed in these was disliked, he was led to lay the foundations of the central part of the edifice with a large square open court, not unlike that of the Hôtel de Salm. This action appears to have been a principal cause of his dismissal by the commissioners on June 28, 1794. Certain drawings still required were furnished by him in November and December of that year.

Small payments of various claims for services were made, the last on June 19, 1795. Hallet lingered in the city, occupied with the invention of a crane for raising stone and with other models, until August 1796.

Hallet established a school of architecture in 1796, but the school disappeared after 1797. He appeared in Havana in 1800 and in New York City in 1812 where he may have remained until his death in 1825.

Achievements

• Étienne Sulpice Hallet was one of the first of a long line of French architects, who have influenced American design and building.

Works

More photos

• book

  • HistoricalFindings Photo: United States Capitol,Washington,D.C,1791,Etienne Sulpice Hallet,1st story plan

    (8x12 inch Photographic Print from a high-quality scan of ...)

  • HistoricalFindings Photo: United States Capitol,Washington,D.C,1791,Etienne Sulpice Hallet,section

    (8x12 inch Photographic Print from a high-quality scan of ...)

  • HistoricalFindings Photo: United States Capitol,Washington,D.C,1791,Etienne Sulpice Hallet,east elevation

    (8x12 inch Photographic Print from a high-quality scan of ...)

  • HistoricalFindings Photo: United States Capitol,Washington,D.C,1791,Etienne Sulpice Hallet,longitudinal

    (8x12 inch Photographic Print from a high-quality scan of ...)

Connections

On January 13, 1780, Etienne S. Hallet married Marie Françoise Gosalle.

After her death he married, on May 10, 1789, Marie Françoise Gomain, the youngest daughter of Claude Gomain, clerk of the Parlement de Paris and, by her later account, a close associate of its last president, Barthélemi-Gabriel Rolland d’Erceville. The couple had three children.

Father:

Claude Jacques Hallet

Mother:

Gabrielle Robin

Wife:

Marie Françoise Hallet (Gosalle)

Wife:

Marie Françoise Hallet (Gomain)

References

• Washington, Outside and Inside: A Picture and a Narrative of the Origin, Growth, Excellencies, Abuses, Beauties, and Personages of Our Governing City