(b Cologne, 20 Aug 1792; d Paris, 25 March 1867). French architect, architectural historian, urban planner and writer. He was the only son of a family of prosperous craftsmen from the Rhineland who acquired French nationality after Cologne was annexed by France in 1794. Hittorff was apprenticed as a mason and studied mathematics and drawing with an architectural career in prospect. As a French citizen he was then able to study in Paris, where he moved in 1810; he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1811 and joined the atelier of Charles Percier. In the same year he assisted on the first important metal structure erected in France, the iron dome of the Halle au Blé (1808–13), under the direction of François-Joseph Bélanger. Following the return of the Rhineland provinces to Prussia in 1814, Hittorff was unable to continue with his French education and could not enter for the Prix de Rome. However, he and another young architect, Joseph Lecointe (1783–1858), were taken on by Bélanger, who had been reappointed Architecte des Fêtes et Cérémonies Royales upon the restoration of the Bourbons. Working at first under Bélanger’s guidance and then, after his death (1818), taking over his position themselves, Hittorff and Lecointe designed the settings and decorations for many important court ceremonies, including the removal of the remains of Louis XVI to Saint-Denis (1815), the baptism of the Duc de Bordeaux (1821), the funeral of Louis XVIII (1824) and the coronation of Charles X at Reims (1825)—the last coronation held in Reims Cathedral.

• Hittorff, Jacques-Ignace
  • Cockerell: (2) C. R. Cockerell, §1: The Grand Tour and archaeology
  • assistants
    • Zanth, Ludwig von
  • collaboration
    • Haussmann, Georges Eugène
    • Paris, §II, 5(i): Urban development: Revolution and First Empire, 1789–1814
    • Railway station, §2: History
    • Rohault de Fleury: (2) Charles Rohault de Fleury
  • excavations
    • Greek Revival, §4: The implications of polychromy
  • groups and movements
    • Greek Revival
    • Paris, §VI, 3(iv): Académie des Beaux-Arts: Architectural role
  • patrons and collectors
    • Bourbon, §I: (13) Louis XVIII, King of France
  • staff
    • Richardson, H. H., §1: Childhood and education
  • works
    • Amphitheatre, §2: Later history
    • France, §II, 4(i): Architecture, c 1814–c1914: Basilical variants & private arch. at the Restoration
    • France, §II, 4(vi): Architecture, c 1814–c 1914: The city-machine
    • Iron and steel, §II, 1(i): Architecture, c 1750–c 1850
    • Paris, §II, 5(ii): Urban development: Restoration and the July Monarchy, 1815–48
    • Paris, §II, 5(iii): Urban development: The Second Empire, 1848–69
    • Polychromy, §1(ii): Architecture, after c 1800
    • Portico, §2: Later history