The frontispiece Laugier added to the second edition of his Essai sur l'architecture became one of the most influential images for architecture of the eighteenth century. In the foreground, a muse sits beside the paraphernalia of the classical tradition: fluted column shafts, a capital, fragments of an entablature. She points to the natural source of these man-made arti- facts in an absolutely elemental primitive hut made of simple trees and logs still connected to the earth and sprouting branches alive with leaves. With this image, Laugier catapulted the ancient and somewhat incidental explanation of the origin of architecture into a rigorously exact and rationally prescriptive model for contemporary design. Laugier maintained that the hut manifested stable and universal architec- tural principles that might serve as an antidote for the licentiousness of rococo. In his mind, the hut was to be the constant exemplar in the reform and purifica- tion of architecture for it embodied all that was nec- essary to building-clear geometry, absolutely logical structure, and no unnecessary ornament. In attempt- ing to fix unwavering architectural principles, an effort manifestly indebted to both Perrault and Cordemoy, Laugier enlightened architectural theory and brought its analysis up to the methodological standards of the philosophes. The influence of his ideas was enormous and, although most applicable to ecclesiastical architecture, can be seen in every disen- gaged column and freestanding pediment constructed well into the nineteenth century.
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