Jean Jacques Lequeu. Dessinateur en architecture

Here is an enigmatic man, who will become even more so after reading this book. The author, who has followed and studied this Utopist drawer and architect of the level of Ledoux for decades, kept his promise! To introduce Jean Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826), who will be the object of an exhibition to open next week at the Petit Palais, Duboÿ has called in his contemporaries Charles Fourier and Brillat-Savarin, as well as unexpected imitators such as Marcel Duchamp or Salvador Dalí, up to Michel Foucault or the disputed Manfredo Tafuri, the Venetian professor who was the author’s thesis supervisor. A great part of Lequeu’s life remains wrapped up in mystery – such as his constructions and even his trip to Italy. He referred to himself as a library worm, who read and wrote at night, and who developed a greater part of his work in a brothel in the passage du Grand-Cerf… He received his training at the Ecole gratuite de dessin de Rouen (a novelty when founded in 1740) and invented in his Architecture civile temples, caves, chapels, ideal geometric pavilions, as well as very unconventional drawings.

• Jean Jacques Lequeu. Dessinateur en architecture, by Philippe Duboÿ, Gallimard, 2018, 320 p., €26.