French America: A Visual Architectural History

Rating:
Summary: A visual and intellectual delight
Review: French America is one of those rare coffee table books that is both beautiful to look at and features a well-written and highly interesting text. The photos display incredible luminosity and skill. Both interior and exterior shots are infused with light that reaches out and grabs the viewer. The book itself is a true find - a vast historical and architectural frescoe of the French sites and buildings in America, spanning from New England, the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley to the Gulf of Mexico.

I was fascinated to learn the history of French architecture from constructions along the Mississippi Valley, like Sainte Genevieve, Missouri, built by Normans using the same bousillage and colombage techniques found in local French villages. The more sophisticated architecture of the Creole plantations in Louisiana and the urban and civic buildings of Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C., created from the plan by Pierre-Charles L'Enfant remid us of the once prevading French influence in this country. Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia estate, was inspired by the Hôtel de Salm in Paris and his admiration of French architecture. The Maison Carrée in Nîmes was the prototype of another of Jefferson's architectural projects, the Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, designed along with the French architect Clérisseau.

The special features on history and French culture in the US are a delight, including the Huguenots and their descendants. George Washington himself had Protestant ancestors from the l'Ile de Ré off the Brittany coast. Other sections deal with the Creole influences and the cultural importance of the Cajuns in Louisiana. As the book points out, before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, when Napoleon sold the territory for 15 million dollars,(the greatest real estate deal ever) the settlers of French origin made important contributions in the realms of architecture, education and trade. The Jesuits educated and converted Indian tribes, the coureurs de bois established fur trading posts, talented artisans constructed houses and monuments largely inspired by French architecture from France, Canada and the French West Indies while blending them in such as way as to create a unique new style : American architecture. A great discovery !


Rating:
Summary: French America
Review: Very nice photographs with informative text. A great gift for any American of French ancestry or someone with an appreciation of the French contribution to our culture.