GLASGOW.- The Glasgow School of Art will showcase drawings from the Eugène Bourdon Archive this month to mark the centenary of his death. Eugène Bourdon: From the Classroom to the Battlefield will run in the Reid Building from 5 November – 4 December 2016.

The first Professor of Architectural Design at the united Glasgow School of Architecture, Eugène Bourdon was trained at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris spending most of his eight years at the institution in the atelier of Honoré Daumet and Charles-Louis Girault. The Glasgow School of Art Archives and Collections holds over 100 of the drawings that Bourdon made during this period and which he brought to Scotland in the early years of the 20th century for teaching purposes.

Among the drawings held in the Bourdon Archive are a design for the façade of a covered equestrian circus (1890); a series of construction studies for a military riding School (1891); a design for a College de France (1891); a building for a science faculty (1893); a ballroom in a grand theatre (1894) and a luxury block of apartments (1895) and several large detailed and rendered drawings for Bourdon’s 1895 Diploma project including a domed pilgrimage chapel in the Byzantine-Romaneque style used by Paul Abdie of the Sacré Coeur Basilica in Montmatre.

Also on show in the exhibition will be documents from Bourdon’s time with the GSA, most particularly his correspondence from the Western Front including the optimistic telegram from September 1914: “Commencer Session sans moi enregistrez Marques Donnes arriverai après guerre”

Eugène Bourdon (1890s – 1904)
Having graduated from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts Bourdon initially worked for the French Government four years as an inspector for the 1900 Exposition Universelle with particular responsibility for the Petite Palais. In 1900 he left France and embarked for the USA spending the next two years in New York. Little is known of his work in the period but there are references to him designing the façade for one of the “famous skyscrapers” in an interview he gave to the Glasgow Technical College Magazine in 1911. On returning to France he once again worked with Girault and was set to begin work as an independent architect before the invitation to come to Glasgow arrived.

Eugène Bourdon (1904 – 1914)
In the early 1900s there were two institutions teaching architecture in Glasgow: The Glasgow School of Art and the Glasgow Technical College. In 1903 The Glasgow School of Art was on the look out for a Professor who could take charge of advanced studies as well as directing the preparatory studies in a unified Glasgow School of Architecture. The School was also looking to reorganise the teaching of Design and so a deputation was dispatched to France. The direct consequence of the deputation was the appointment of Giraldon as Professor of Design. He was then tasked with making enquiries for a architecture professor. Bourdon arrived in Glasgow in 1904.

Over the next ten years he had a significant impact on the teaching of architecture growing the department and bringing the rigour of the Beaux-Arts education system to the curriculum. “For all students the emphasis was on practical work with the largest proportion of the time devoted to design projects. Theses were carefully structured according to Beaux-Arts principle that a short , concise design sketch (esquisse) should be followed by a longer methodical working out of the design. The initial idea remained embedded in the design throughout its development.” (Robert Procter)

Eugène Bourdon 1914 - 1916
Throughout his time with The Glasgow School of Art Bourdon was registered as an architect in Versailles and remained a reservist in the French army. Although in his 40s at the outbreak of WWI he answered the call to arms. By 1916 he had reached the rank of staff captain in the 78th Brigade, had twice been mentioned in Army Orders, and was awarded the Croix de la Legion d'Honneur, the Croix de Guerre and the British Military Cross. Throughout his time on the Western Front he maintained a regular correspondence with the GSA even directing the teaching. He was among the almost 30,000 men killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

The Glasgow School of Art has three memorials to Bourdon: a stained glass window commissioned from Robert Anning Bell by The Glasgow School of Art and a bronze tablet and bust commissioned from Alexander Proudfoot. In 1979 a new School of Architecture building at the GSA was opens which bears the name of Eugène Bourdon. Writing in ‘An Architect of the Entente Cordiale’ Gavin Stamp suggest that “Bourdon’s real memorial (at the time of his death) was the School of Architecture. Although reorganization in the post war years would even wipe that away, the generation of architects trained under Bourdon would go on to design prominent Glasgow buildings in the interwar years including Graham Henderson (designer of the Mercat Building at Glasgow Cross who would ultimately replace Mackintosh at Honeyman & Keppie); Edward Grigg Wylie (Scottish Legal Assurance Society Building in Bothwell Street) and Richard M.M.Gunn (Union Bank of Scotland Building, St Vincent Street). Also among the Bourdon cohort were Whyte & Galloway designers of the former Stow College Building which was acquired by the GSA earlier this year adding another link in the chain between the institution and the “civilized architectural values and modern American perspective imparted by Professor Bourdon” (Gavin Stamp)