ABSTRACT
In architecture, the nineteenth century ended with a sense of heaviness and pessimism. As discussed in the previous chapter, one of the issues that defined this period was the question of style, or as some referred to, the “battle of the styles.”2 Towards the end of the century, most European and American cities evidenced the emergence of buildings with the most varied ornamental styles, such as neoclassic, neoGothic, Romanesque, or Byzantine. The ambitious objective expressed by Semper and others of producing a “style of our time” will become a pending matter for the next generation of architects. Many considered the École des Beaux-Arts, Europe’s oldest and most influential school of architecture, mainly responsible for this situation. The teachings of Professor Julien Guadet compiled in his treatise Eléments
et théorie de l’Architecture3 (1900-1904) represent the École’s final and unsuccessful attempt at continuing nineteen-century academicism’s theoretical and pedagogic norms into the twentieth century.
