(b Marseille, 19 Feb 1881; d Paris, 22 Dec 1964). French architect. He studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, where he won the Deuxième Grand Prix de Rome in 1911; he also taught there from 1925 to 1944, in the last two years as director of the entire school. He was married to the painter Elizabeth Branly (1889–1972) and throughout his career showed a keen interest in the other visual arts. As an architect he was best known for his ecclesiastical work; for example his church (1926) in Villemonble is notable for its steeple, with gigantic angels carved in concrete by the sculptor Carlo Sarrabezolles (1888–1971). His simple yet grandiose Eglise du Saint-Esprit (1928), Paris, echoes the magnitude of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, while his church (1928) at Elisabethville-sur-Seine and the cathedral (1930) at Casablanca exploited the decorative potential of the concrete frame, with expressionist overtones. The strength of Tournon’s architecture is also manifest in his less well-known but equally interesting hall of residence (1930) for female students on the Rue Lhomond in Paris, where furnishings were designed by Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, and his prize-winning competition entry (1933; with Marcel Chappey) for a Palais des Expositions in Paris, sponsored by the Office Technique de l’Utilisation de l’Acier. Tournon was elected to the Institut de France in 1942.

• Tournon, Paul
  • Pingusson, Georges-Henri