François Mansart

François Mansart (13 January 1598 - 23 September 1666) was a French architect credited with introducing classicism into Baroque architecture of France. The Encyclopædia Britannica cites him as the most accomplished of 17th-century French architects whose works "are renowned for their high degree of refinement, subtlety, and elegance". Mansart, as he is generally known, made extensive use of a four-sided, double slope gambrel roof punctuated with windows on the steeper lower slope, creating additional habitable space in the garrets that ultimately became named for him – the mansard roof. François Mansart was born to a master carpenter in Paris. He was not trained as an architect; his relatives helped train him in as a stonemason and a...