Guillaume-Abel Blouet

The study of Roman architecture that was expected from students at the French Academy at Rome resulted in his speculative restoration of the original construction of the Baths of Caracalla, Restauration des thermes d'Antonin Caracalla, à Rome, présentée en 1826 et dédiée en 1827 à l'Académie des Beaux-Arts (1828).

In the course of the expedition he established the identity of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (1829), which was measured and carefully drawn and published.

Upon Blouet's return to Paris he devoted himself to the reform of prison design and in 1838 was appointed to the new post of Inspector General of French Prisons, which brought with it, ex officio, a seat on the Conseil des bâtiments civiles, the official national body that succeeded the Bâtiments du Roi of the Ancien Régime.

[4] In 1846 he was appointed a professor at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, where his pupils included Jules Pellechet.

In 1848, when his post of Inspector General of Prisons was eliminated in a reorganization,[5] he was given in compensation the position of architect in charge of the Palais de Fontainebleau, which was to be a center of court life under the French Second Empire.