Research On The Design Ideas And Significance Of The Church Of Ste. Genevieve

Church of Sainte-Genevieve, designed by Jacques Germain Souffiot, started building in 1758. The design and construction of the church, as the first great experiment of the rational combination of Classical form and Gothic structure, played an important role in western architectural history, which had deep influence on the later changing of architectural ideas.The dissertation will start with the biography of the architect Souffiot and the theoretical background of the time, foreshadowing the design ideas of the church by depicting the background of Classicism doctrine, Academic Royale d'Architecture, and Enlightenment.After that, the church design of each period will be described at length and the representative ideas including clear construction logic, free form combination, rational structural science and metaphorical language will be analyzed carefully.At last, the dissertation will sum up the typical ideas in the church design, the roots of which are deep in the idea of revivalism and eclecticism, structural science and architectural identity. Then, the historic consciousness deeply behind the ideas in the church design will be explored in order to find out the origin of the modem architectural spirit.