Perrault was born and died in Paris. As physician and natural philosopher, who received a medical degree from the
University of Paris in 1642, Perrault became one of the first members of the
French Academy of Sciences when it was founded in 1666. A committee commissioned by
Louis XIV, the Petit Conseil, comprising
Louis Le Vau,
Charles Le Brun, and Perrault, designed the
east façade of the Louvre. It was begun in 1667 and was essentially complete in 1674. By 1680, Louis XIV had abandoned the Louvre and focused his attention on the
Palace of Versailles. The wing behind the east façade was not finished until the 19th century with the advent of
Napoleon. The definitive design of the east façade is attributed to Perrault, who made the final alterations needed to accommodate a decision to double the width of the south wing. He also created projects for the joining of the Louvre with the
Tuileries Palace and may have devised the use of iron tie rods behind the
entablature of the east façade in order to solve engineering problems arising from forces causing stress in the masonry. File:Claude Perrault, perspective bird's-eye view of the Louvre from the east – Berger 1993, figure 67.jpg|Drawing of 1668, attributed to Perrault, showing a design for the
east façade of the Louvre File:Louvre et Tuileries - Plan général suivant le second projet de Claude Perrault - Architecture françoise Tome4 Livre6 Pl2.jpg|General plan of Perrault's second project for the joining of the
Louvre and the
Tuileries, engraved by
Jacques-François Blondel His design for a
triumphal arch on Rue St-Antoine was preferred over the competing designs of Le Brun and Le Vau, but was only partly executed in stone. When the arch was taken down in the 19th century, it was found that he had devised a means of interlocking the stones, without
mortar, so that it had become an inseparable mass. He also created a design (unexecuted) which used free-standing columns for the reconstruction of the church of
Sainte-Geneviève in Paris. File:Claude Perrault, perspective bird's-eye view of the Observatoire, Paris – Berger 1993, figure 68.jpg|Bird's-eye view of the
Paris Observatory, 1667 drawing by Perrault File:Arc de Triomphe du Thrône, RP-P-1964-1779.jpg|Design for the Arc de Triomphe du Thrône on the Rue Saint-Antoine, 1670 and Claude Perrault Aside from his participation in the design of the Louvre, he became well known for his translation into French of the ten books of
Vitruvius, the only surviving
Roman work on architecture. Begun at the instigation of
Colbert, it was published, with Perrault's annotations, in 1673. His treatise on the five
classical orders of architecture followed in 1683. ==Written works==