Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

On 21 June 1723 a fire ravaged Châteaudun, destroying more than a thousand houses. Jules Hardouin, building controller, was responsible for the reconstruction of the city centre. He designed a chessboard plan centered on a large public square, surrounded by regular buildings and arcade shops. The square, rectangular in shape, was to accommodate four large projecting buildings, two of which were built: the town hall (1777) and another stone building.

Of the other two sites for monumental pavilions, only one post office was built in 1900, replacing the original projects. The facades and roofs of the remaining buildings, especially at the corner of the streets of Luynes and Toutfaire, were protected by a registration order in 1953. These buildings reflect the planned urban planning of the eighteenth century, combining functionality (shops, public buildings) and classical aesthetics.

The Place du 18-October, today communal property, retains traces of this ambitious project. Its geometric plot, where the large side of the rectangle is equivalent to the diagonal of a square built on the small side, illustrates the rational principles of the urban architecture of the time. The arcades, designed to house shops, also underline the central economic role of this space in the reconstructed city.

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