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DUQUESNEY, François-Alexandre - b. 1790 Paris, d. 1849 Paris - WGA

DUQUESNEY, François-Alexandre

(b. 1790 Paris, d. 1849 Paris)

French architect. He graduated from the École des Beaux-Art where he was a student of Charles Percier (between 1809 and 1816). He exhibited at the Salon of French Artists in 1827. He was government architect appointed for the Ecole des mines de Paris from 1838 to 1849; he was a founding member of the Société centrale des architectes in 1840.

His works include the plan of a courthouse designed for the city of Lille (1833); expansion of the Hôtel de Vendôme for the École nationale supérieure des mines in Paris (1840-49); Gare de l’Est in Paris (1849).

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Railway architecture began simultaneously in England and the USA, with the Liverpool-Manchester line and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, both established in 1830. The most creative period of the development of railway stations was between 1835 and 1914, when structural and functional possibilities were fully explored. There are three types of station: the through station, where the buildings lie parallel to the tracks; the island or connecting station, which is situated between the tracks; and the terminus, where the buildings enclose the ends of the tracks in an L or U shape.

Terminal buildings were in all tastes from Neo-classical to the Renaissance Revival, Romanesque Revival or Gothic Revival. A significant innovation for the building type was the integration of the fa�ade with the train-shed behind it, resulting in a wide arch over the centre of the fa�ade, as at Fran�ois Duquesney’s Gare de l’Est (1847-52) in Paris.

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