Xenotheka_57

The book I was first assigned to is called “Mémoire historique sur le Dôme du Panthéon Français”. As it says in the title it’s a memoire of Jean Baptiste Rondelet who was involved in the construction of the Panthéon. For the new task I tried to search the obvious terms like the title of the book or the author. I came to the realization that there are more results if I translate the words in English and I should only use keywords and not a whole sentence. Otherwise, Alice couldn’t find matching results. For me the Xenotheka Library worked best and brought the most results. Since Jean Baptiste Rondelet was more an architect than an author I tried architecture, construction, architect, design and Paris for the topic of conversation. 

The first result I selected was a book written by Erika Naginski and it’s called “Sculpture and Enlightenment”. Compared to the book by Jean Baptiste Rondelet it contains similar graphics and layouts. Erika Naginski wrote about the political shift in an architectural context in France during the 18^th century. This period was heavily influenced by the politics of Louis XIV. Naginski addresses this politic shift and it’s effect on architecture and art. In the short section related to the book by Rondolet she describes the responsibility he had in the constructions of the pantheon in Paris. The book has 316 pages of which half are illustrations. It’s divided in four chapters and it was published in 2009.

My second choice landed on a book by Caroline van Eck and Sigrid de Jong with the title 

“Eighteenth-Century Architecture, The Companions to the History of Architecture”, published in 2017. The book is written in a very analytic manner which is the opposite of the “Mémoire historique sur le Dôme du Pantheon Français” by Jean Baptiste Rondelet. The book analyses where Architecture has succeeded and the building itself has reached a specific value.