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Pascal Coste | |
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 Charcoal portrait (1859) | |
| Born | Xavier Pascal Coste (1787-11-26)26 November 1787 |
| Died | 8 February 1879(1879-02-08) (aged 91) Marseille,French Third Republic |
| Resting place | Cimetière Saint-Pierre, Marseille 43°17′28″N5°24′45″E / 43.29111°N 5.41250°E /43.29111; 5.41250 |
Xavier Pascal Coste (26 November 1787 – 8 February 1879) was aFrench architect. He was at one time a personal architect forMuhammad Ali Pasha. As a seasoned traveller, his travels toQajar Iran, aroused the interest of KingLouis Philippe I and that gained Coste the post of chief architect ofMarseille in 1844.
Coste was born inMarseille, where his father was one of the leadingjoiners. Showing intellectual and artistic promise, Coste began his studies in the studio ofMichel-Robert Penchaud, architect of the département and the municipalité. In 1814, he was accepted into theÉcole des Beaux-Arts inParis. His time in Paris was a pivotal one in his life—there he met the geographerEdme-François Jomard, who put him in touch with the viceroy ofEgypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, who took Coste as his personal architect in 1817.
In 1825, Coste returned to France with an impressive series of drawings of the architecture ofCairo, but he soon went to Egypt once again at Ali's request, where Ali made him chief engineer forLower Egypt. Coste remained there for four years, during which time he accumulated many sketches, but he reportedly found theEgyptian climate difficult and returned to France in 1829. He became a professor of architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, due in part to the links he had kept with Penchaud. He remained in this post until 1861, when he was one of the founding members of the intellectual centre known as the Athénée.
In parallel with these activities, he travelled around France and toGermany,Belgium andTunisia, where he produced several authoritative works on architecture; hisarchitecture arabe (1827) earned him a place on theFrench king's embassy to theIranian Shah. InIran, Coste and the painterEugène Flandin were authorized to visitIranian Azerbaijan,Isfahan,Shiraz and the ruins ofEcbatana,Bistun,Taq-e Bostan,Kangavar,Pasargadae andPersepolis, where he made many sketches. On his return viaBaghdad, he saw the ruins ofSeleucia,Ctesiphon andBabylon. He continued viaNineveh, to which the archaeologistPaul-Émile Botta was also travelling to begin his excavations.
HisMiddle East journey aroused the interest ofLouis Philippe I and gained Coste the post of chief architect of Marseille in 1844. In 1846, the president of the Chambre de Commerce,M. Luce, commissioned from Coste theBourse on Marseille'sCanebière. Coste was also the originator of two other architectural projects in Marseille—the construction of the faculté aux allées de Meilhan, and a museum with château d'eau at Longchamps. He also began construction on the abattoir d'Arenc, only completed in 1851.
A tireless traveller, even aged over 80, he visitedSpain,Ireland,Germany,Austria,Hungary,Russia andItaly. He left 30 albums of drawings on his death, now held at the Bibliothèque de Marseille, though some of his essays were never published. Towards the end of his life, he was made an officer of theLégion d'honneur. He died aged 92 and was buried at thecimetière Saint-Pierre inMarseille.
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