Before we can get to the real essence of Beaux-Arts architecture, we first need to address what it was not. Contrary to how it is presented in many architectural guides, Beaux-Arts was not simply a style.

It is often defined as the architecture produced by graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts, the legendary nineteenth-century architecture school in Paris. But that definition quickly falls apart. Many buildings that look exactly like what we now call the Beaux-Arts style were designed by architects who never attended the school. At the same time, many buildings designed by its graduates look nothing like what we now associate with Beaux-Arts architecture.

Graduates of the school also played important roles in the development of entirely different architectural movements. Auguste Perret, a Beaux-Arts-trained architect, designed the first Art Deco building. Another alumni, Hector Guimard became one of the pioneers of Art Nouveau. Louis Sullivan, the skyscraper pioneer who coined the phrase “form follows function,” was also trained at the École des Beaux-Arts. Surely we would not describe them as Beaux-Arts architecture.

But the greatest problem with the modern definition is that the school itself did not teach a style. It was strongly opposed to doing so. The school even had a rule against using the work of living architects as teaching examples, precisely to prevent contemporary fashion from becoming a fixed architectural recipe.

I recently produced an annotated English edition of the school’s principal architectural textbook. Among its roughly 540 drawings, I could find hardly a single example of what we would now call the Beaux-Arts style.

And yet, 150 years later, this style is almost all that the school is remembered for—a style that it neither taught nor recognized. By reducing Beaux-Arts to a visual formula, we have mistaken one possible result of its teaching for the teaching itself, and largely forgotten the architectural philosophy that made the school so influential.

So if the Beaux-Arts school was not a recipe for a style, what was it? And why is it the only nineteenth-century architecture school that people still talk about today?

It was, of course, an elite school. It educated much of the architectural establishment of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France and had an enormous influence on architecture in the United States. On the bottom of this page I provide a longer list of buildings designed by its alumni. In the United States, these include the Biltmore Estate, Grand Central Terminal, The Breakers, New York Public Library and even Mar-a-Lago. In Paris, alumni of the school designed buildings such as the Palais Garnier, the Grand Palais, the Sacre Coeur and the Gare d’Orsay.

But elite schools have existed throughout history. Many American presidents attended Harvard or Yale, just as many British prime ministers attended Oxford or Cambridge. However, prestige alone does not explain why the École des Beaux-Arts became so influential.

So was there something genuinely different about the way it taught architecture? The school itself certainly believed there was. In his 1894 inaugural lecture as professor of architectural theory, Julien Guadet claimed that the École des Beaux-Arts was the most liberal architecture school in the world. He argued that what distinguished it was the artistic freedom it gave its students and its refusal to impose a single style.

Guadet even mocked Vitruvius, whose ancient Roman treatise had served for centuries as one of the principal authorities on architectural design. The school did not reject history, but it did see itself as breaking with the idea that architecture should be governed by fixed rules inherited from the past.

To see whether this was more than simply the school’s own self-image, I compared Guadet’s textbook, the Elements and Theory of Architecture, with one of the leading American architectural textbooks of the same period, William Ware’s The American Vignola. Both were published around 1900, but they present architecture in strikingly different ways.

Ware, who taught at Columbia University, follows a much more traditional classical approach. His book concentrates on the established orders, proportions and rules of classical design. Guadet’s method is broader and less prescriptive. Rather than beginning with a fixed architectural vocabulary, he begins with the practical and artistic problems a building must solve.

When we look at the architecture actually being built in Europe and the Americas during the late nineteenth century, Guadet’s teaching seems to correspond much more closely. Ware’s book, by comparison, often feels more like a guide to the stricter neoclassical and Georgian architecture of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

This may help explain why the École des Beaux-Arts became so influential. Rather than preserving an increasingly narrow set of classical rules, Guadet gave architects a method that could accommodate the much wider range of buildings, materials and styles appearing in the late nineteenth century. The school’s success was therefore not only the result of its prestige or famous alumni. Its teaching seems to have matched the architectural reality of its time unusually well, giving students both a common intellectual framework and considerable freedom in how they applied it.

Some may still point to the distinctly French character of many buildings now classified as Beaux-Arts. If the school was simply teaching the architecture of its time, why did so much of its work look different from contemporary British, German or Italian architecture? This objection is partly correct, but it also reveals why Beaux-Arts is better understood as a philosophy than as a style.

One of the central principles of Beaux-Arts teaching was what Guadet called moral truth. By this, he meant that a building should express the society, purpose and place to which it belonged, rather than simply copying an architectural formula from somewhere else. Moral truth was only one part of the broader Beaux-Arts philosophy, which I discuss in much more detail in my separate article on the three principles of Beaux-Arts architecture.

The important point here is that Beaux-Arts teaching was intended to produce different results in different places. Applied in France, it naturally produced French architecture. Applied in Germany, Italy or Britain, it could produce something quite different. The Peace Palace in The Hague and Hamburg City Hall, both designed by Beaux-Arts-trained architects, have no French character. The Ottoman Beaux-Arts trained architect Alexandre Vallaury often worked with Middle Eastern and Ottoman classical traditions, while the Canadian Beaux-Arts architect John M. Lyle actively promoted the creation of a distinct Canadian national architecture.

The modern confusion probably arose partly from the extraordinary prestige of the École des Beaux-Arts itself. For wealthy American clients, hiring an architect trained at the famous Parisian school carried considerable social status, and a visibly French building could emphasize that connection. The architecture advertised not only the taste and wealth of the client, but also the elite credentials of the architect.

Richard Morris Hunt is perhaps the clearest example. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, he designed a series of highly prominent American buildings in French styles, including the châteauesque Biltmore Estate. Buildings like these helped create the impression that Beaux-Arts education naturally produced French architecture. But the French appearance was not imposed by the school’s teaching. It was often a deliberate choice by architects and clients who wanted to display their association with the prestige of French culture and, more specifically, with the École des Beaux-Arts itself.

But examples like Hunt should not distract from the broader point. French architecture was only one possible expression of the Beaux-Arts philosophy, shaped by a particular place, period and group of clients. The same philosophy could still be applied today and might produce buildings that look nothing like those of the nineteenth century. Beaux-Arts teaching was designed to adapt to changing societies, materials and needs. That adaptability is what still makes it relevant—and it is precisely what disappears when Beaux-Arts is remembered only as a historical style.

Now let us look at how the school developed this unusual approach and came to break with older standards of classical teaching.

The institution itself was much older than the architectural philosophy for which it later became famous. It was founded in 1648 and divided into departments for painting and sculpture and for architecture. During the nineteenth century, it trained some of Europe’s most famous painters, including Delacroix, Sisley and Renoir, while also famously rejecting Rodin and Cézanne, now regarded as two of the greatest artists in French history.

For this article, however, I will focus on the architecture department and the emergence of its distinctive teaching method. Around the middle of the nineteenth century, four professors in particular began moving the school away from more traditional forms of architectural instruction: Joseph-Louis Duc, Félix Duban, Henri Labrouste and Léon Vaudoyer.

All four were influenced by Romanticism, the broader artistic movement then transforming European culture. Romanticism developed partly as a reaction against the strict rules, ideal proportions and fixed hierarchies that had dominated classical art for much of the previous century. Instead of believing that beauty could be produced by following a universal recipe, Romantic artists placed greater value on historical character, atmosphere, imagination and emotional effect.

This did not mean that rules or skill no longer mattered. Nor did it mean that novelty was automatically considered valuable. Innovation was justified when it made the finished work more expressive, moving or appropriate. However, the general attitude towards innovation was still skeptical.

There is a loose parallel here with much mass appeal contemporary art, including mainstream cinema. Hollywood films may use new technologies, unusual settings and inventive techniques, but they are still judged largely by whether they tell a compelling story and produce a satisfying emotional response. The results of this focus can sometimes be conventional or predictable, yet they can also be immediately understandable, emotionally powerful and widely enjoyed.

The Beaux-Arts professors, however, were not simply Romantics. They combined this artistic freedom with a strong current of rationalism. Historical forms, in their view, were not valuable merely because they evoked the past. They had often survived because they successfully solved practical and artistic problems involving structure, climate, function, construction and visual communication.

Tradition therefore represented accumulated architectural experience rather than a collection of arbitrary rules. At the same time, the professors accepted new materials and technologies when these offered better solutions. Innovation was treated as a tool rather than as an end in itself. It could transform how a building was constructed and could influence its appearance, but it should not sever the building from the society, place and architectural culture to which it belonged.

This combination of shared principles, personal mentorship, artistic freedom and demanding competition helps explain how the school could produce architects with a common intellectual foundation.

That makes the way we use the term Beaux-Arts today, to describe an ornamental form of classical revival combined with modern materials, deeply misleading. It reduces an entire system of architectural thought and education to only one of its historical results.

More importantly, it obscures a theory of architecture that may still have much to offer today: one that combines artistic freedom with rational judgement, treats tradition as accumulated knowledge rather than as a fixed recipe, and embraces new materials and technologies without making novelty an end in itself.

The true legacy of the École des Beaux-Arts was therefore not a particular appearance. It was a method for allowing architecture to change while remaining connected to its purpose, its place and its culture. That is far more interesting, and potentially far more useful, than the historical style for which the school is now remembered.

• Astor Mansion (US) by Richard Morris Hunt (US)

• Austin Hall, Harvard University (US) by Henry Hobson Richardson (US)

• Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse, Lisieux (France) by Louis Marie Cordonnier (France)

• Bibliothèque Nationale de France (France) by Jean Louis Pascal (France)

• Biltmore Estate (US) by Richard Morris Hunt (US)

• Bode Museum (Germany) by Ernst von Ihne (Germany)

• Cantacuzino Palace (Bucharest) (Romania) by Ion D. Berindey (Romania)

• Castle Hill (Ipswich, Massachusetts) (US) by David Adler (US)

• CEC Palace, Bucharest (Romania) by Paul Gottereau (France)

• Central Library University of Bucharest (Romania) by Paul Gottereau (France)

• Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Consolation de Paris (France) by Albert Guilbert (France )

• Chateau Impney (UK) by Richard Phené Spiers (UK)

• Cinquantenaire, Brussels (Belgium) by Charles Girault (France)

• Crédit Lyonnais headquarters (France) by Victor Laloux (France)

• Edward VII Galleries, British Museum (UK) by John James Burnet (UK)

• Église Saint-Julien de Domfront (France) by Albert Guilbert (France)

• Galeries Lafayette Haussmann (France) by Georges Chedanne (France)

• Gare Saint-Lazare (France) by Juste Lisch (France)

• Grand Central Terminal, New York (US) by Whitney Warren (US)

• Grand Palais, Paris (France) by Charles Girault (France)

• Great Hall at King's College School, Wimbledon (UK) by Bannister Fletcher (UK)

• Guaranty Building (US) by Louis Sullivan (US)

• Hamburg City Hall (Germany) by Martin Haller (Germany)

• Hearst Castle (US) by Julia Morgan (US)

• Hidayet Mosque, Istanbul (Turkey) by Alexandre Vallaury (Turkey)

• Hôtel de Ville, Dunkirk (France) by Louis Marie Cordonnier (France)

• Hôtel de Ville, Roubaix (France) by Victor Laloux (France)

• Hôtel de Ville, Tours (France) by Victor Laloux (France)

• Hôtel Élysée Palace (France) by Georges Chedanne (France )

• Imperial College of Medicine, Istanbul (Turkey) by Alexandre Vallaury (Turkey)

• Jefferson Memorial (US) by John Russell Pope (US)

• John N. A. Griswold House (US) by Richard Morris Hunt (US)

• Laeiszhalle (Germany) by Martin Haller (Germany)

• Low Memorial Library, Columbia University (US) by Charles Follen McKim (US)

• Lycée Lakanal (France) by Anatole de Baudot (France)

• Maison Coilliot (France) by Hector Guimard (France)

• Mar-a-Lago (US) by Marion Sims Wyeth (US)

• Marseille Cathedral (France) by Leon Vaudoyer (France)

• Monte Carlo Casino (France) by Charles Garnier (France)

• Musée d'Orsay (France) by Victor Laloux (France)

• National Museum of Fine Arts (Chile) by Emile Jéquier (Chile)

• National Museum of Natural History (France) by Louis-Jules André (France)

• New Hummelshain Castle (Germany) by Ernst von Ihne (Germany)

• New York Biltmore Hotel (US) by Whitney Warren (US)

• New York Public Library (US) by John Merven Carrère Thomas Hastings (US)

• New York State Capitol Building (US) by Henry Hobson Richardson (US)

• New York State Education Building (United States) by Henry Hornbostel (United States)

• New York Yacht Club Building (US) by Whitney Warren (US)

• Opera Garnier (France) by Charles Garnier (France)

• Palace of Culture, Bucharest (Romania) by Ion D. Berindey (Romania)

• Palais de Justice, Paris (France) by Joseph Louis Duc (France)

• Paris Metro Entrance (France) by Hector Guimard (France)

• Peace Palace, the Hague (The Netherlands) by Louis Marie Cordonnier (France)

• Pennsylvania Station, New York City (US) by Charles Follen McKim (US)

• Petit Palais, Paris (France) by Charles Girault (France)

• Poste Du Louvre (France) by Julien Guadet (France)

• Restoration of Château of Blois (France) by Felix Duban (France )

• Restoration of Sainte-Chapelle (France) by Felix Duban (France)

• Royal Museum of Central Africa, Brussels (Belgium) by Charles Girault (France)

• Sacré-Cœur, Paris (France) by Paul Abadie (France)

• Saint-Jean de Montmartre (France) by Anatole de Baudot (France)

• Sainte-Geneviève Library (France) by Henri Labrouste (France)

• The Breakers (US) by Richard Morris Hunt (US)

• Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (France) by Auguste Perret (France)

• Tours Station (France) by Victor Laloux (France)

• Tower of Jewels (US) by Thomas Hastings (US)

• Trinity Church Boston (US) by Henry Hobson Richardson (US)

• Union Station, Toronto (Canada) by John M. Lyle (Canada)

• Vichy Opera House (France) by Charles Le Cœur (France)

• Villa le Manoir (France) by Gustave Umbdenstock (France)

• Villa Majorelle (France) by Henri Savage (France)

• Wainwright Building (US) by Louis Sullivan (US)