Architecture is commonly considered the most public of the arts, as if inherently, although the concept of the public only began to acquire its modern form in the 18th c. Paradoxically, architecture itself promoted this assumption by helping to construct the public sphere in the same period. Architectural theory played a leading role in this negotiation, as a material product embedded in the publishing industry and in particular reading practices, and as a conceptual apparatus circulating in a new discursive realm. A text from Quatremère de Quincy's Dictionnaire d'architecture (Paris: 1788-1825) that addressed the needs of a public in the making serves here as a vehicle for examination of these larger issues.
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