Perret, Auguste

(1874-1954)

   architect

   Born in Ixelles, Belgium, Auguste Perret, who became one of the most important pioneers of modern French architecture, was the son of a Communard exile. He enrolled in the École des beaux-arts in Paris, where he studied architecture with his brothers Gustave (1876-1952) and Claude (1880-1960), who later became his associates. Perret was one of the earliest advocates of the use of reinforced concrete as a building material, and his apartment building (1903) in the rue Franklin in Paris was the first residential building constructed of that material. He also was preoccupied with classical proportions, a link with earlier architects, as exemplified in his church of Notre-Dame at Le Raincy. As director of the postwar rebuilding of Le Havre (1949-56), Perret designed a gridlike plan based on classical proportions, with a broad central axis, large squares, and stylistically uniform prefabricated houses. in Paris, some of Perret's works include the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (1911-13), a large building on the rue de Ponthieu (1906), L'École normale de musique (1929), and the Musée des Travaux publics (1937).