Jules Aimé Lavirotte (Lyon, March 25, 1864 - Paris, March 1924) was a French architect who designed no fewer than nine buildings still standing in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, or in immediately surrounding arrondissements. His flamboyant work won him acclaim among his contemporaries, and won him the Concours de Façades de la Ville de Paris on at least two occasions: once for the building at 29 Avenue Rapp (1901), and again for the Ceramic Hotel, 34 Avenue de Wagram (1904).
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Lavirotte was born in Lyon, and went on to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, where he was a pupil of Antoine Georges Louvier (1818–92). He subsequently studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris under the tutelage of Paul Blondel (1847–97), and gained his architect's diploma there in 1894.[1]
The first major building designed by Lavirotte, the largely restrained French Rococo facade offers only hints of the theatrical displays for which Lavirotte was to become known.
The earliest Lavirotte building to feature an unconventional assembly of fantastical themes and oddities.
The large scale deployment of glazed earthenware on the facade of this building is the first example of its kind in the West.[2] Glazed tiles are embedded in the stone and in the brick, and they cover much of the facade. The ceramicist responsible for this finishing was a Mr Alexandre Bigot[3], and the building proved to be an effective advertisement for his wares. It was very lavishly adorned even by the standards of the many ceramically finished facades that were built in the following years, which were for the most part appointed this way because this was a way to protect and beautify the iron and concrete materials whose use was fast becoming the standard. The building at 29 avenue Rapp also had a highly exotic door frame designed by the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Larrive, and sculpted by Messrs Sporrer, Firmin-Marcelin Michelet, and Alfred Jean Halou.[4]
Roy Johnston: Parisian Architecture of the Belle Epoque (2007, ISBN 9780470015551)