François Mansart

François Mansart (23 January 1598 - 23 September 1666) was a French architect, born and died in Paris. He is regarded as one of the leading figures of French classical architecture in the 17th century. In roofing history he is remembered because the mansard roof, a four-sided double-sloped roof, carries his name.

Career

Mansart worked mainly for aristocratic and royal clients. His earliest surviving work is the Château de Balleroy. Other works include:

• The Temple du Marais in Paris (1632), formerly the Church of St Mary of the Visitation;
• The Château de Maisons, his best-preserved mature work, admired for its symmetry, original interior decoration and staircase;
• The convent and church of Val-de-Grâce in Paris, begun in the 1640s for Anne of Austria. He was replaced by another architect, who largely followed his design.

The mansard roof

Mansart did not invent the double-pitched roof. The earliest known example is usually credited to Pierre Lescot at the Louvre around 1550, before Mansart was born. But he used the form so often and so elegantly that it became known by his name; "mansard" is a corruption of "Mansart". The design let architects fit a full storey of rooms within the roof, lit by dormers in the steep lower slope.

Family legacy

His great-nephew Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646-1708) continued the family's architectural tradition and reused some of François's plans, notably for Les Invalides in Paris. The family name thus became attached both to a building type and to two generations of French classical architecture.

Influence on roofing

Two centuries after his death, the mansard roof was revived on a massive scale under Napoleon III and Haussmann, and from Paris it spread to Europe and North America. Its covering in zinc and slate on Paris apartment blocks remains one of the world's most recognisable roofscapes.