Pierre-Louis Moreau-Desproux

Pierre-Louis Moreau-Desproux (Paris 1727 — Paris 1793) was a pioneering French neoclassical architect.

Though he did not gain the Prix de Rome that was the dependable gateway to a prominent French career in architecture, his fellow-student Charles de Wailly invited him to share his prize. In Rome, from September 1754 to December 1756, half the customary three years, they were exposed to the ferment of the new neoclassical style and took part, with Marie-Joseph Peyre, in the archaeological excavations of the Baths of Diocletian; their speculative reconstructions of the complex attracted the attention of Piranesi.

On his return to Paris, Moreau-Desproux’s first commission was the fully neoclassical Hôtel de Chavannes near the Porte du Temple, at that time on the outskirts of the city; the house was completed by May 1758 and was demolished in 1846 (Eriksen); it earned a critical analysis from the Abbé Laugier, theoretician of neoclassicism, in his Observations sur l'architecture 1765. A colossal order of Ionic pilasters distinguished its façade, where the two floors were articulated by a plain banding of Greek key fret.

Officially Moreau-Desproux was appointed architect-in-charge (maître des bâtiments) to the city of Paris in 1763 and held the appointment until 1783. His great-uncle Jean-Baptiste-Augustin Beausire had formerly held the position. His position enabled him to influence the appointment of Jean Chalgrin to a place in the city's office of works. Probably in 1763-64 Moreau-Desproux designed and built the severely neoclassical plinth-like free-standing Fontaine des Haudriettes at the juncture of the rue des Archives and the rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes, Paris IIIe. His official position required that he design and see constructed numerous temporary decorations erected for festive occasions: his designs for the masked ball given for the King and Queen, 23 January 1782, on the occasion of the birth of Monseigneur the Dauphin was engraved by Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune.

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