Louis Émile Durandelle

b. 1839 — d. 1917

Louis-Émile Durandelle French, 1839-1917 Born in Verdun, Louis-Émile Durandelle is known for his portrayal of important construction projects that helped Paris achieve its unique mix of ancient and modern architecture during the second half of the 19th century. In partnership with photographer Hyacinthe César Delmaet (1828-1862), or perhaps with his wife Clémence Jacob Delmaet, whom Durandelle married after Delmaet's death, he recorded the construction and details of some of the city's great new building projects -- including the Sacre Coeur, the new Hôtel de Ville, the archaeological excavations at the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower -- in a direct, almost modernist style. Especially well known is his photographic documentation of the construction of Charles Garnier's Paris Opéra, which occupied four of the eight volumes of Le Nouvel Opéra de Paris (1875-81). Durandelle stopped photographing in 1890. While his treatment of building and industry can be stark and direct, his unadorned, functional work is attractive to the modern eye. T.W.F.