Emmanuel Pontremoli

Emmanuel Pontremoli was a French architect of Italian-Sardinian origin. He was initially fascinated by painting and attended the École nationale des arts décoratifs in Nice. In 1883 he became a student of architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1890 he received the Grand Prix de Rome and was a guest of the French Academy in Rome at the Villa Medici from 1891-96.

Pontremoli conducted numerous archaeological investigations and restored ancient monuments. He worked in Florence, Ancona, Verona, and Berlin. In 1895, he published a series of surveys and views of Pergamon in Asia Minor and subsequently participated in an excavation mission to the site of an Apollo temple at Didymes. From 1896-97 he visited Greece, in particular the French site at Delphi. One year later, Pontremoli worked in Pergamon again. For his panels from there, he received the Grand Prix for Architecture at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1900.

After returning to Paris, Pontremoli worked at the Louvre Museum, participated in the installation of the Rubens Gallery, and prepared the plans for the Palais de la Femme for the World’s Fair. Between 1902 and 1908, he created his best-known work, the Villa Kérylos in Beaulieu-sur-Mer (Alpes-Maritimes), a villa in the ancient Greek style, which was built for the French archaeologist, ancient historian, and politician Théodore Reinach (1860-1928).

The French Consulate General in Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey) also dates from this period. It was rebuilt true to the original after the great fire of 1922. In 1911, Pontremoli built the synagogue in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine) in Byzantine style, commissioned by the philanthropist and Zionist Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934). In 1912 he designed the Institute for Human Paleontology in Paris for Albert I of Monaco (1848-1922).

In 1922, Pontremoli was elected as a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. He became one of the leading professors of architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was appointed director in 1932. He made the school a haven of neoclassicism.