Architecture in the Encyclopedie of Diderot and D'Alembert

Architecture in the Encyclopedie of Diderot and d'Alembert surveys the manner in which architecture and architectural subjects are portrayed in the great twenty-eight volume French Encyclopedie of Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, published between 1751 and 1772, and the seven volume Supplement of Joseph Panckoucke, published between 1776 and 1780.

The work encompasses architecture; fine arts (painting and sculpture); the art of building; carpentry and joinery; mechanical arts and metal work; military art and fortification; and gardens, gardening and landscape. The reader is provided with detailed inventories of the letter-press articles (discours) and plates (planches) to all these subjects which amount to nearly 5000 citations.

These guide the reader/researcher to the source material and to the writers, artists and craftsmen who created the greatest encyclopaedic monument to the age of Enlightenment.

This book traces the turbulent circumstances which enveloped the Encyclopedie and gives historical and biographical details of the principal contributors to architecture and architectural subjects. One hundred plates are reproduced from the original breathtaking folio engravings. These are accompanied by a 20,000 word translation of the explications abstracted from the French text - thought to be the most comprehensive ever attempted in English on architectural subjects.

The work has been supported financially by the French Government (Office of the Cultural Attache), the Architect's Registration Council of the United Kingdom and the University of Edinburgh.