Art and Architecture in the French Atlantic World, 1608-1828 - Utopianism and Intransigence in a Paper Empire is the first comprehensive study of the art and architecture of the French Atlantic Empire, from Senegal to French Guyana, the Antilles to Louisiana, and the Great Lakes to Nouvelle-France (Quebec and the Maritimes). Although the arts and architecture of Spanish and Portuguese America today comprise one of the most flourishing subjects in the art-historical discipline the same cannot be said for those of its French equivalent, which astonishingly-except for regional scholarship on Quebec and a handful of studies of buildings in Louisiana-does not exist as a field. This book aims to do two things for the first time: (1) to amalgamate all regions of the French Atlantic Empire into a single study, treating them as the integrated whole which they in fact were; and (2) to contextualize French America within the history of Latin American art and architecture, examining how differing ideologies and utopianisms among the French and Iberian empires led to strikingly contrasting architectural and visual cultures despite shared histories of conquest, settlement, conversion, and forced labor. The book also will be the first project on the arts and architecture of early Modern Catholic America to incorporate the architecture and visual culture of colonial West Africa, an essential link of the chain of mercantile, military, and missionary activities which tied the empire together.

Spanning from the West African coast to the Canadian prairies and south to Louisiana, the Caribbean, and Guiana, France's Atlantic empire was one of the largest political entities in the Western Hemisphere. Yet despite France's status as a nation at the forefront of architecture and the structures and designs from this period that still remain, its colonial building program has never been considered on a hemispheric scale. Drawing from hundreds of plans, drawings, photographic field surveys, and extensive archival sources, Architecture and Urbanism in the French Atlantic Empire focuses on the French state's and the Catholic Church's ideals and motivations for their urban and architectural projects in the Americas. In vibrant detail, Gauvin Alexander Bailey recreates a world that has been largely destroyed by wars, natural disasters, and fires – from Cap-François (now Cap-Haïtien), which once boasted palaces in the styles of Louis XV and formal gardens patterned after Versailles, to failed utopian cities like Kourou in Guiana. Vividly illustrated with examples of grand buildings, churches, and gardens, as well as simple houses and cottages, this volume also brings to life the architects who built these structures, not only French military engineers and white civilian builders, but also the free people of colour and slaves who contributed so much to the tropical colonies. Taking readers on a historical tour through the striking landmarks of the French colonial landscape, Architecture and Urbanism in the French Atlantic Empire presents a sweeping panorama of an entire hemisphere of architecture and its legacy.

Spanning the North Atlantic rim from Canada to Scotland, and from the Caribbean to the coast of West Africa, the British Atlantic world is deeply interconnected across its regions. In this groundbreaking study, thirteen leading scholars explore the idea of transatlanticism--or a shared "Atlantic world" experience--through the lens of architecture, built spaces, and landscapes in the British Atlantic from the seventeenth century through the mid-nineteenth century. Examining town planning, churches, forts, merchants' stores, state houses, and farm houses, this collection shows how the powerful visual language of architecture and design allowed the people of this era to maintain common cultural experiences across different landscapes while still forming their individuality. By studying the interplay between physical construction and social themes that include identity, gender, taste, domesticity, politics, and race, the authors interpret material culture in a way that particularly emphasizes the people who built, occupied, and used the spaces and reflects the complex cultural exchanges between Britain and the New World.