Mansart or Mansard, François [key], 1598–1666, French architect. His work is noted as being an outstanding expression of French classical design. In 1635 he was commissioned by the duc d'Orléans to make additions to the château of Blois. That same year he designed the Hôtel de la Vrillière, which for a long time served as a classic model for the elegant Paris house. Mansart began construction of the Church of Val-de-Grâce and finished the lower part before the commission was transferred to Lemercier. The best surviving examples of Mansart's work are the château of Maisons and, in Paris, the alterations of the Hôtel Carnavalet, now a museum.
See A. Blunt, François Mansart and the Origins of French Classical Architecture (1941); A. Braham and P. Smith, François Mansart (2 vol., 1973).
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