The Académie Royale d'Architecture, founded in 1671, was a French learned society, which had a leading role in influencing architectural theory and education, not only in France, but throughout Europe and the Americas from the late 17th century to the mid-20th.
History
The Académie Royale d'Architecture was founded on December 30, 1671, by Louis XIV, king of France under the impulsion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Its first director was the mathematician and engineer François Blondel, and the secretary was André Félibien. The academy was housed in the Louvre for most of its existence, and included a school of architecture. Its members met weekly. Jacques-François Blondel describes the academy quarters in his Architecture françoise of 1756. The main rooms were on the ground floor and included two lecture halls, one for meetings of the academy members on Mondays and mathematics lectures on Wednesdays, and another for public lectures on architecture on Mondays. There was also a large room for the display of architectural models. The rooms for the secretary of the academy were in the mezzanine level, reached via the staircase. The academy quarters were temporarily roofed at the level of the main floor, since much of the Louvre still lacked a roof at the level of the attic. The attic roof was finally added under Napoleon. The Académie d'Architecture was suppressed in 1793, but later revived and merged in 1816 into the Académie des Beaux-Arts, together with the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture and the Académie de Musique. In addition, the traditions of the Académie d'Architecture were maintained and spread by the architecture section of the École des Beaux-Arts up to 1968, when the French government completely reorganized architectural education. The Académie des Beaux-Arts is now one of the five academies of the Institut de France.
Design competitions
From 1720 to 1968, the Académie Royale d'Architecture and its successors held annual competitions for the Grand Prix de Rome in architecture. The winner was typically required to study for several years at the Académie de France in Rome. In 1763 Jacques-François Blondel established less ambitious monthly competitions, which encouraged students to devote more time to their school work during their time in their supervisor's studios.
From 1911 to 1929, the French art historian published the proceedings of the Academy in ten volumes with the title Procès-verbaux de l'Académie royale d'architecture 1671–1793:
