Germain Boffrand

Germain Boffrand, who introduced the rocaille style to French architecture, was one of the great decorators of the Régence period. Born in Nantes in 1667, he trained under Jules Hardouin-Mansart on the king's building projects starting in 1686.

In Paris, he designed the celebrated salons of the Hôtel de Soubise, the high point of rocaille art, where ornamentation flourished throughout the interior and left its mark on an entire generation.

Appointed chief architect to Duke Léopold of Lorraine, in northeastern France, in 1711, he built the Château de Lunéville and, for the Lorraine nobility, several residences, including the Château d'Haroué and the Château de Vaux.

A theorist as well as a practitioner, he published his Livre d'architecture in 1745. He died in Paris in 1754, leaving behind a body of work that bridges the grand style of Louis XIV and the lightness of the 18th century.