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'Constant-Désiré Despradelle' (b. 1862 - d. 1912) was a French-born professor of architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who, through his teaching, influenced the Beaux-Arts style in North America. Born in 1862 in Chaumont, France, he died on February 8, 1912 in Boston. He was admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at age twenty, and obtained his diploma in 1886. He won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1889, and shortly afterwards he went to Boston, accepting a position as Professor of Design at MIT. He served twenty years from 1892 until his death in 1912. He taught the Beaux-Arts style and thus influenced the style's continued use throughout North America until about 1920. Among architects who studied under him were the Canadians George Allen Ross, William Sutherland Maxwell and Andrew R. Cobb. American architects who trained under him included Ellis Lawrence,^[1] and Raymond Hood.^[2]
A contemporary anecdote in the MIT student paper ''The Tech'' (October 9, 1902) may give some indication of his manner and personality: "''The Lounge'' [a column in the paper] secured the services of Mr. Derby as interpreter, and thus equipped sought an audience with Professor Despradelles. After an excited conversation of about fifteen minutes Mr. Derby reported in full to ''The Lounge'' as follows, 'Mr. Despradelles says that Sunday is a curious American custom'."
In Boston he also maintained a practice with Stephen Codman, called Codman and Despradelle. Among their best known buildings is the Berkeley Building on Boylston Street, Boston, now a US national landmark. Despradelle's most famous unrealized project was the monumental "Beacon of Progress" he intended for the site of the 1893 Exposition in Chicago.

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References

Notes

1. Ellis Lawrence Accessed March 6, 2007
2. Raymond Hood Accessed March 6, 2007

References

★ Mark Jarzombek. ''Designing MIT: Bosworth’s New Tech''. Northeastern University Press, 2004.

★ William Maxwell reference

★ ''The Tech'', Vol. 22

★ The Beacon of Progress