Pierre Alexis Delamair

Pierre-Alexis Delamair ([pjeːʁ aleksi dəlameːʁ]) (Chatenay-Malabry 1675/6 — Agde 25 July 1745) was a French architect, theorist and city planner, whose ambitious plan for a rational restructuring of the center of Paris, 1737, never came to fruition, as it would have required the demolition of the existing city to be replaced with an ideal city.

Delamair was the son of Antoine Delamaire, and received his training in the Batiments du Roi, directed by Robert de Cotte. His three works on architecture remained in manuscript. In one, Delamair proposed in 1725 enlarging and connecting as one, the three islands in the Seine, the Ile de la Cite, the Ile Saint-Louis, and the Ile Louvier, to make a single Ile de Paris that would make a more suitable site for the Hotel de Ville. The idea was taken up by Pierre-Louis Moreau-Desproux in 1769 and expanded towards the end of the 18th century by Pierre Patte and by Charles De Wailly.

Delamair completed three hotels particuliers, the Hotel de Soubise at Paris (1704–1709), for Francois de Rohan, prince de Soubise, and the adjoining Hotel de Rohan (1705–1708), built for Soubise's son, Armand-Gaston, bishop of Strasbourg, and revisions to the former Palais Rohan at Strasbourg (1705–1708, demolished within Delamair's lifetime for the present structure). His replacement at the Rohan houses by Germain Boffrand, at the moment of his precocious triumph, left him an embittered man.