Education
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
Born in Paris, Pascal was taught at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts by Émile Gilbert and Charles-Auguste Questel. After brief service in the Franco-Prussian War, he returned to Paris to assist Hector Lefuel with the restoration of the Louvre, and succeeded Questel as the head of his own old atelier. In 1875, his star rising in the academy system, Pascal was appointed the head architect for the National Library of France upon the death of the previous architect, Henri Labrouste.
Pascal brought this long project nearly to completion, contributing interiors and exteriors, the Oval Room, the Salon Voltaire, the periodical room, and the grand staircase.
His other major work includes many monuments and memorial throughout France, the residence and studio of French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 75 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Paris, finished in 1868, and the tomb of Jules Michelet at Père Lachaise Cemetery in 1893. He died in Paris.
Pascal may have had his greatest influence as a teacher, both for French architects and particularly for international students who adapted the lessons of the Beaux-Arts to their home countries.
Pascal"s atelier was credited with a total of four grand prizes and fifteen second prizes while he was patron. Among Pascal"s many students were:
the French-American Paul Philippe Cret
the French-American Constant-Désiré Despradelle, who educated a further generation of student as professor of architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
the Scottish Sir John James Burnet
the American Guy Lowell
the Canadian William Sutherland Maxwell
the Canadian Ernest Cormier
Henri Paul Nénot
Henri Sauvage
Charles Mewès
Eugene Bourdon (architect)
Arnold Higuer.