Pascal Coste
1787–1879 · French architect, engineer and draughtsman of Eastern monuments
Xavier Pascal Coste (Marseille, 26 November 1787 - Marseille, 8 February 1879) was a French architect whose drawings and studies of monuments in Egypt, Persia and the Near East have lasting documentary value. Although architecture was his main profession, he is remembered above all for his detailed records of ancient and medieval buildings.
The son of a prominent Marseille carpenter, he began his training in the workshop of the architect Penchaud. In 1814 he was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in the class of Léon Vaudoyer, and in 1815 he returned to Marseille to resume work with Penchaud. His career changed when, in Paris, he met the geographer Jomard, who introduced him to Muhammad Ali, viceroy of Egypt. In 1817 he was hired for industrial works, and after commissions that included a saltpetre works, a canal and telegraph towers, he returned to France in 1822 with a remarkable series of drawings of Cairo's architecture.
He went back to Egypt in 1823 as chief engineer of Lower Egypt, overseeing work on the canals of the Nile. A scorpion sting and the climate damaged his health, and he returned to France in 1827. In 1829 he published a map of Lower Egypt. Between 1828 and 1861 he taught architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Marseille.
His best-known work, Arab Architecture, or Monuments of Cairo (1837), led to his attachment to the embassy of Édouard de Sercey to the Shah of Persia. Together with the painter Eugène Flandin he travelled through Persia, recording ruins such as Persepolis, and then visited Mesopotamia. In 1844 he was appointed chief architect of Marseille, and in 1846 he received the commission for the Palais de la Bourse on the Canebière. He also designed Marseille churches such as Saint-Lazare and Saint-Joseph.
He kept travelling into old age through Spain, Germany, Austria, Russia and Italy. He left thirty albums of drawings, held in the Marseille library, and many manuscripts that remain unpublished. His documentary record of monuments in the East and in Europe is still a valuable source for the history of architecture.