Antoine Choquet de Lindu


Antoine Choquet de Lindu was a French architect and military engineer in the service of the French Navy

Life

Entering the Navy as a clerk, like his father, he executed a very large number of very important buildings at Brest, well known for their solidity if not for their elegance and so perfectly fitted to their purpose. Made sous-ingénieur in 1743, he then became chief engineer in 1746. From 1764 to 1767, the Ministry of the Navy and the Ministry for War were merged, and Choquet de Lindu was attached to the royal corps of engineers, with a commission as an infantry captain.
Between 1738 and his retirement in 1784 Choquet de Lindu devoted himself to the rebuilding and expansion of the port of Brest, producing "works of all kinds" – barracks, hospitals, magazines, dry docks, shipyards, theatres, prisons, sail and rope factories, dams and docks. It has been calculated that the buildings built by him over his whole career have a total area of 4,400 square metres. His main works were a Jesuit chapel attached to the hôpital Saint-Louis, the Brest prison and the three basins of Pontaniou.

Works

Buildings

He also completed projects outside the port of Brest :
He wrote the "bagne" article in Diderot's Encyclopédie, and was a member of the académie de marine. He published two works: