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- Architect Libéral Bruant, 1635
- Architect Daniel Gittard, 1625
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Libéral Bruant (ca 1635 - Paris, 22 November 1697), was a French architect best known as the designer of the Hôtel des Invalides, Paris, now dominated by the dome erected by Jules Hardouin Mansart, his collaborator in earlier stages of the construction. A comparison of Bruant's central entrance to the Invalides, under an arched cornice packed with military trophies with Mansart's Eglise du Dome, gives a clear idea of the difference between Bruant's High Baroque and Hardouin - Mansart's restrained and somewhat academic Late Baroque.
Libéral Bruant was the most notable in a family that produced a long series of architects active from the 16th to the eighteenth century.
In 1660, Libéral Bruant was the architect chosen for rehabilitations to Louis XIII's old arsenal (the Salpêtrière), which was being converted into a combination workhouse and orphanage. It is now the Pitié - Salpêtrière Hospital.
In the Marais district of Paris, the hotel
particulier Bruant built for himself in 1685, at rue
de la Perle no.1 now houses the Bricard lock museum (Musée
de la Serrure). Its Baroque facade of golden limestone is
enlivened by windows set into blind arches that march
across its front and busts in oval reserves, all under a
richly sculptured pediment that is pierced by an oval
window.
Daniel Gittard is an architect born in French Blandy - les - Tours (Seine - et - Marne) in 1625 and died in Paris in 1686 .
Pupil of Louis Le Vau, Gittard was architect of the king. He participated in the construction of several houses and religious buildings in Paris: the novitiate of the Oratory (1655), the convent and church of the Benedictines of the Blessed Sacrament (1658), the Saint - Sulpice Church (1660).
He also stepped foundations and gardens of Vaux - le - Vicomte .
At Chantilly, on behalf of the Grand Conde, he directed the Grand Stairway under the direction of André Le Nôtre and redevelopment works at the castle with Jules Hardouin - Mansart.
In 1671, he was one of the first members of the Royal Academy of Architecture recently established by Louis XIV.
His son, Pierre Gittard (1665 - 1746), was an architect and engineer of the king.