King Francis I of France appointed him as the architect responsible for building projects at the Palais du Louvre,[2] transforming the old château into the renowned palace.
The wing features two stories with an attic adorned with Jean Goujon's richly detailed bas-relief panels and is topped by a sloping roof, a traditional French architectural element suited to a rainy climate.
Lescot's earliest works, completed between 1540 and 1545, included the rood screen at Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, though only some sculptures by Jean Goujon have survived.
Unlike many architects of the French Flamboyant Gothic and Renaissance periods, Lescot did not come from a lineage of masons with practical experience.
According to a eulogistic poem by Ronsard,[5] Lescot devoted his early youth to drawing and painting and, after the age of twenty, turned his attention to mathematics and architecture.
A dismissive mention in the memoirs of the duc de Nevers, published long after Lescot's death, refers to "Magny" (likely Clagny) as "a painter who used to make inventions of masquerades and tourneys,"[6] reflecting the expectation for court architects of the 15th to 17th centuries to design such spectacles.