Imagination in the treatise ‘L’Architecture considérée sous le rapport de l’Art, des Moeurs et de la Législation’ (1804) by the French Architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux

The paper analyses the different kinds of imagination that the French architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux uses during his career as architect but also as theorist. In fact, Ledoux employs his imagination to project his famous ideal city of Chaux but also to write his treatise L’Architecture considérée sous le rapport de l’art, des moeurs et de la legislation. The book of Ledoux, published for the first time in 1804 is composed by a collection of 125 engravings, accompanied by an introduction and a very long text of 240 pages. Even if it belongs to the tradition of Renaissance treatises like the one published by Palladio, at the same time it is very original because of its narrative sequence which combines various genres: from the philosophical thought to a travel report, from a personal diary to the moral fable. Three voices appear in this text very emphatic and rich in pathos: the traveller, the tourist guide and the architect. And through these voices, Ledoux may write a very particular kind of architectural history where imagination holds a large and important part