Garnier, Tony

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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b. 13 August 1869 Lyon, France

d. 19 January 1948 Bedoule, France

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French architect and urban planner, a pioneer of the concept of segregation of pedestrian and wheeled traffic and of the use of concrete in building construction.

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Garnier spent almost all his life in Lyon, apart from the years that he passed in Rome as a result of winning the Prix de Rome in 1889. While there, he evolved his concept of the cité industrielle, plans of which he exhibited and published early in the twentieth century. This was an idealized town, powered electrically, with its industrial areas separated from leisure ones. Garnier envisaged flat-roofed buildings supported on pilotis, with glass cladding, a steel structure, and extensive use of concrete. He proposed that each family should occupy its own house in a garden-city concept. In 1905 Garnier became city architect to Lyon, where he was able to carry out some of his ideas of the cité industrielle. He used concrete widely in such schemes as the municipal stadium, the Abattoirs de la Mouche and various housing schemes.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Conseil Supérieur de l'Orde des Architectes. Honorary Degree Princeton University, USA.

Bibliography

1932, Une Cité industrielle, Paris: Vincent.

1920, Les Grands travaux de la ville de Lyon, Paris: Massin.

Further Reading

C.Pawlowski, 1967, Tony Garnier et les débuts de l'urbanisme functionnel en France, Paris: Centre de la Recherche d'Urbanisme.

M.Rovigalti, 1985, Tony Garnier: Architettura per la città industriale, Rome: Officini Edizioni.

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