Soufflot, Jacques Germain

Soufflot, Jacques Germain

(zhäk zhĕrmăN` so͞oflō`), 1709–80, French architect, noted chiefly as the designer of the Panthéon (1764–89; see under pantheonpantheon
, term applied originally to a temple to all the gods. The Pantheon at Rome was built by Agrippa in 27 B.C., destroyed, and rebuilt in the 2d cent. by Hadrian.
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) in Paris. He won the commission in an open competition. The building is crowned by a majestic masonry dome, and can be considered one of the great monuments of neoclassicism in the 18th cent. The dome was uncompleted at Soufflot's death, and the work was continued by others and completed by his pupil J. P. Rondelet.