Théâtre des Champs-Elysées

Initiated by entertainment entrepreneur Gabriel Astruc and businessman and patron Gabriel Thomas, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées was intended to give Paris a new “philharmonic palace”. The project was full of twists and turns. In June 1910, Henry Van de Velde was hired as a consultant architect; in November 1910, Gabriel Thomas (the primary sponsor of Hercules the Archer) approached Bourdelle and asked him to rework Van de Velde's design for the façade, as it was considered “too Germanic”. In early 1911, the architect contacted the brothers Auguste & Gustave Perret – whose company specialised in reinforced concrete techniques – to build the structural frame of the theatre. On 6 February, the Perret brothers declared the project “unbuildable in reinforced concrete” and drew up plans for a more rigorous “construction framework” based on the specific characteristics of the new material. Henry Van Velde was soon taken off the project completely. On 20 June 1911, Auguste Perret suggested an elevation for the partly blind façade on Avenue Montaigne, in reinforced concrete clad in marble. The theatre's board of directors rejected the proposal. Bourdelle was once again called in to assist, and was all the more willing to collaborate as he was an advocate of sculpture as “the  fulfilment of architecture”. In three weeks and thirteen sketches, he designed the façade of the new “Temple of Music”. Perret's horizontal approach was abandoned in favour of a vertical cadence, punctuated by high bays. In this twelfth study, the figures in the frieze and the five bas-reliefs are not yet fully developed, but they are as close as possible to “the white serenity” of the wall, in keeping with “the calm, majestic aplomb” of this 20th century Parthenon. On 13 July 1911, Bourdelle was officially commissioned to decorate the façade and frescoes in the atrium of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.

Jérôme Godeau