Jean Benoît Vincent Barré (Seine-Port, Seine-et-Marne, 22 January 1735 – Seine-Port, 27 January 1824) was a French architect. He was one of the most important architects of the 18th century and one of the creators of the 'Louis XVI style' of architecture.

Biography

Jean Benoît Vincent Barré learned architecture in the school of Antoine Matthieu Le Carpentier, from whom he also derived part of his clientele. He worked for very rich patrons, erecting sumptuous and elegant buildings, perfectly fitted to the taste of the day. His career nevertheless remains relatively unknown. He worked for financiers like Laurent Grimod de La Reynière, for whom he built the famous Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière in Paris, Jean-Joseph de Laborde or for Laborde's father-in-law, Mathias de Nettine, banker at the Austrian court. Through Nettine's influence, he was commissioned to build Brussels' Place Royale/Koningsplein, Church of St. James on Coudenberg, and French embassy. In 1770, Barré was named inspector of the buildings for the king's gunpowder and saltpeter, during which appointment he built his best-known work, the château du Marais (1772–1779), for Jean Le Maître de La Martinière, treasurer-general of the artillery. For Louis Georges Érasme de Contades, maréchal de Contades, he rebuilt the château de Montgeoffroy, in Anjou. Underrated by his fellow architects, only one other backed he is presenting himself to the Royal Academy of Architecture. In 1772, Barré gave himself over to property speculation in the Nouvelle France quartier of Paris, in association with Jean-François Perrin de Cypierre, intendent of the généralité of Orléans. Later he speculated in association with Antoine Roy, who married Barré's daughter Adélaïde-Sophie in 1793 and had two daughters by her. (Roy made a great fortune and became finance minister upon the Bourbon Restoration.) In 1797, Barré retired to his property of La Chesnaye at Seine-Port where he died of old age in 1824.

Main projects