Philippe de La Guêpière

(Pierre Louis) Philippe de La Guêpière (c. 1715 – 30 October 1773) was an 18th-century French architect whose main commissions were from Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg.

That same year Leopoldo Retti, who was engaged in building the Neues Schloss in Stuttgart for Karl Eugen, made an artistic reconnoitering trip to Paris, in the company of the duke's garden designer Hemmerling.

At any rate, in 1752 Karl Eugen named La Guêpière architect to his court of Württemberg, to fill the post left empty by the unexpected death of Retti, in September the previous year.

La Guêpière was one of the group of French-trained architects, like François de Cuvilliés in Munich, who brought the latest French style to the small German courts.

His Recueil de différens projets d’architecture représentant plusieurs monuments publics et autres (Stuttgart, Jean Nicolas Stoll) was published on 11 December 1752.

He left Württemberg in 1768, with Schloss Solitude almost completed, to return to Paris, where he was one of the first architects to turn away from Rococo, developing his style towards the Goût grec the "Greek taste' that was the early forerunner of neoclassicism.