People:

Centre canadien d'architecture (compiler)
Charles Rohault de Fleury (architect)

Title:

Domestic Commissions

Date:

[between 1838 and 1861]

Level of archival description:
File 2

Extent and medium:

3 albums
17 drawings
3 manuscripts
15 prints

Scope and content:
Hubert and Charles Rohault de Fleury received domestic commissions for both urban housing -hôtel particuliers and apartment houses- and rural dwellings -châteaux, country houses and estates. Hubert also executed designs for furniture and garden pavilions. Hubert' work is characterized by restrained classical exteriors and luxurious Empire style interiors; both Charles' exteriors and interiors, especially those for Hôtels Sauvage and Soltykoff, reflect the exuberance of the Second Empire. The CCA albums include drawings from all stages of the design process but with an emphasis on design development drawings. Hubert's albums contain cost calculations and estimates, notes and letters. In general, the drawings by Charles are from a more developed phase of design than Hubert's; Hubert's commissions are more varied than Charles'.

Charles' Hôtel Soltykoff (1854)(DR1974:0002:003:001-105) is exemplary of the Second Empire not only in its architectural language, programme and interior decoration, but also its use of mixed stone and iron construction. The album for Hôtel Soltykoff is one of the most comprehensive in the CCA collection. The drawings incorporate several phases of the design process from conceptual ideas to post-construction revisions. Numerous drawings for the structure and exterior ornamentation are included as well as drawings for the embellishment of the interior spaces. The interior drawings are especially interesting for evidence they provide of the palette of colours and ornamental motifs utilized in the Second Empire. Several prints (plates XIX - XXIII) in 'Oeuvre de C. Rohault de Fleury, architecte', which include general plans and elevations (few of which are included in the Hôtel Solytkoff album), are a useful complement to more specific drawings in the album.

The Hôtel Sauvage (ca. 1862) album (DR1974:0002:006:001-024) - a set of 24 contract drawings- consists exclusively general plans, sections and elevations. This group of drawings give a good overall sense of both the interior and exterior. Hôtel Sauvage, like Hôtel Soltykoff is also typical of the Second Empire in style and programme.

Château de Marcoussis (ca. 1861), for which a group of drawings were acquired in 1986, diverges somewhat in character from the other examples of Charles' domestic works represented in the CCA collection (DR1986:0379 - DR1986:0413). While most of the other houses are strictly classical in planning and design, for Château de Marcoussis, Charles adopted a more romantic asymmetrical château style design.

The domestic commissions (1838-1856) in album, DR1974:0002:002:001-094, roughly fall into two categories. The first category consists of single residences - both town and country. The regimentation of plans and façades in the hôtel particular and country houses manifests the continued influence of Durand, yet Charles was also clearly affected by the Second Empire propensity for elaborate façade treatments with decoratively-shaped windows, complex mouldings and extensive rustication. The second category consists of urban apartment building with stores or occasionally offices on the ground floor, apartments, generally two per floor, above and often servants' rooms in the attic. These buildings are articulated in a restrained manner with mouldings, decorative ironwork and some stone ornament.

Reference number:

CI001.S2.D2