Cenotaph

architects - Ettienne Louis Boulle

Compare: DELPHINE - Design of the Tomb of Isaac Newton (c1784)

GAY - Cenotaph for Newton (c1784)

LEQUEU - The Tomb of the Wisest and Most Famous of Men (c1784)

Boullee's drawings alone transformed the taste of an era. Typical is his memorial to Newton, whose mathematicla ordering of the universe led European though into the Age of Reason. The design presents a vast sphere, chosen as a symbol of Newton because of its purity of form, majesty, grace of outline, and the regular gradation of its light and shade. The scale is gigantic, as the tiny figures and the three rings of mournful cypresses tell. The section reveals that the masonry globe is a miraculously hollow void lit only by tiny holes representing constellations of stars. The design is a tour-de-force of imagination, an example of "l'architecture parlante" (expressive architecture).