Claude Nicolas Ledoux, visionary architecture and social utopia Luc Gruson To cite this version: Luc Gruson. Claude Nicolas Ledoux, visionary architecture and social utopia. International Confer- ence of Territorial Intelligence, Oct 2008, Besançon, France. pp.299-307. hal-00767259 HAL Id: hal-00767259 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00767259 Submitted on 20 Dec 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. FP6 – 2004 – CITIZENS – 5 – 8.2.2 Coordination Action (CA) 029127 - CAENTI 38 Claude Nicolas Ledoux, visionary architecture et social utopia Luc GRUSON Associated Professor, University of Franche-Comté, Besançon, France Former Manager of the Claude Nicolas Ledoux Foundation, Arc-et-Senans, France Assistant general Manager of the public Institution of Porte Dorée, Paris, France
[email protected] Abstract: Claude Nicolas Ledoux is not only the famous French utopian architect from the 18th century. He had also some very modern ideas about industrial production, urban planning, and “territorial intelligence”. The project of the royal salt works (1775-79) was an opportunity to apply several very innovating ideas about economical organisation and social living. After the French Revolution, Ledoux planned an “ideal city” which continues to fascinate by its revolutionary vision of the future.