Jacques Félix Duban (14 October 1798, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 - 8 October 1870, Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

) was a French architect, the contemporary of Jacques Ignace Hittorff

Jacques Ignace Hittorff

Jakob Ignaz Hittorff was a German-born French architect who combined advanced structural use of new materials, notably cast iron, with conservative Beaux-Arts classicism in a career that spanned the decades from the Restoration to the Second Empire.After serving an apprenticeship to a mason in his...

 and Henri Labrouste

Henri Labrouste

Pierre François Henri Labrouste was a French architect from the famous École des Beaux Arts school of architecture. After a six year stay in Rome, Labrouste opened an architectural training workshop, which quickly became the center of the Rationalist view...

.

Duban won the Prix de Rome

Prix de Rome

The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...

 in 1823, the most prestigious award of the École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...

. He was much influenced by his five-year stay in Italy, particularly his sense of color, influenced by the polychrome paintings of ancient Pompeii, newly uncovered Etruscan tombs, and the tradition of the great decorations painted in the Renaissance.

By far Duban's most visible work is the main building of the École, undertaken in 1830. The main building, the Palace of Studies, was designed with integral paintings and interior sculpture for artists' education. His redesign and alignment of the entire campus frames the main building from the entrance on Rue Bonaparte. With other expansions towards the Seine, this work was completed around 1861.

Duban was elected as member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1854. Among his many students was Charles-Auguste Questel

Charles-Auguste Questel

Charles-Auguste Questel was a French academic architect and teacher.-Biography:Born in Paris, Questel was a student of Félix Duban at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and took a second-place Prix de Rome in 1844. He became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1871.Questel...

.

Work

• Restoration of the castles of Château de Blois
  Château de Blois
  The Royal Château de Blois is located in the Loir-et-Cher département in the Loire Valley, in France, in the center of the city of Blois. The residence of several French kings, it is also the place where Joan of Arc went in 1429 to be blessed by the Archbishop of Reims before departing with her...
  
  , Château de Gaillon
  Château de Gaillon
  The Château de Gaillon is a renaissance castle located in Gaillon, Haute-Normandie region of France.-History:The somewhat battered and denuded Château de Gaillon, begun in 1502 on ancient foundationswas the summer archiepiscopal residence of Georges d'Amboise, Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen; he ...
  
  , and Château de Dampierre
  Château de Dampierre
  The Château de Dampierre is the castle in Dampierre-en-Yvelines, in the Vallée de Chevreuse, France.Built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, 1675-1683 for the duc de Chevreuse, Colbert's son-in-law, it is a French Baroque château of manageable size...
  
  
• Completion and restoration of the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre
  Louvre
  The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
  
  , beginning in 1848. It reflects and reinforces its structure and repairs coverage that protects the valuable decorated barrel vault, built in 1661 on the orders of the young Louis XIV.
• Restoration of the Sainte-Chapelle
  Sainte-Chapelle
  La Sainte-Chapelle is the only surviving building of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion Relics, including the Crown of Thorns - one of the most important relics in medieval...
  
  , with Jean-Baptiste Antoine Lassus and a young Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
  Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
  Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc was a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings. Born in Paris, he was a major Gothic Revival architect.-Early years:...
  
  .
• Restoration of various historical monuments and private monuments