Claude-Nicolas Ledoux’s Royal Salt Works at Chaux

Study the plans and buildings of Ledoux’s original salt works and his later ideal town. How does the specific placement of buildings organize both work and social life?

Claude-Nicolas Ledoux endowed industry with a central role in his aesthetic imagination and his vision of progress. Ledoux’s royal salt works at Chaux, both the first project built in 1778 and the subsequent unrealized ideal town (pictured above), not only proposed to maximize industrial efficiency but to instill social harmony. Carefully study the plans and buildings of Ledoux’s original salt works and his later ideal town (a utopian plan). How does the specific placement of buildings organize both work and social life? How do certain kinds of geometries serve to relate labor and surveillance?