Education
Collège Sainte-Barbe. École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
Collège Sainte-Barbe. École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
After a six-year stay in Rome, Labrouste opened an architectural training workshop, which quickly became the center of the rationalist view. He became noted for his use of iron-frame construction and was one of the first to realize the importance of its use. Born in Paris, Labrouste entered the Collège Sainte-Barbe as a student in 1809.
He was then admitted into the second class and the Lebas-Vaudoyer workshop in the École Royale des Beaux Arts in 1819. In 1820, he was promoted to the first class. Competing for the Grand Prix, Labrouste took second place behind the Palais de Justice by Guillaume-Abel Blouet in 1821.
In November, he left Paris for Italy, visiting Turin, Milan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Modena, Bologna, Florence and Arezzo. The directors of the Académie stated in correspondence in French about the laureates that, in their studies of antiquity, they "must research the laws of proportion and reduce them to formulas to be used by masters and students in Paris."
His work was the subject of "Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light," the first solo exhibition in the U.S. of his work, at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His buildings include:
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, and built between 1843 and 1850
The Salle Labrouste, a reading room in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in the Rue de Richelieu, Paris, and built between 1862 and 1868.
Académie des Beaux-Arts.