1 · POSITION
Louis-Charles Boileau was the French architect who gave Le Bon Marché one of the defining architectural forms of the modern grand magasin, combining monumental commercial space with innovative metal-and-glass construction.
2 · YEARS
Louis-Charles Boileau lived from 1837 to 1914.
3 · FAMILY
He belonged to a notable French architectural family and was the son of architect Louis-Auguste Boileau.
4 · LE BON MARCHÉ
His most important LHL anchor is the expansion of Le Bon Marché for Aristide and Marguerite Boucicaut.
5 · GRAND MAGASIN PROBLEM
The new department-store model required enormous open floors, daylight, crowd circulation and flexible merchandise display.
6 · ARMAND MOISANT
Boileau worked with engineer/constructor Armand Moisant on the vast metal structure.
7 · METAL
Iron construction allowed a commercial scale impossible with conventional masonry planning alone.
8 · GLASS
Large glazed roofs brought daylight deep into the building.
9 · DOUBLE GLAZING
Le Bon Marché credits Boileau and Moisant with a double-glazed roof solution addressing condensation and insulation.
10 · ARCHITECTURE + ENGINEERING
The store demonstrates why authorship in modern commercial architecture must be shared between architect and engineer.
11 · GUSTAVE EIFFEL
Eiffel later contributed to technical aspects of an expansion, but first-party Le Bon Marché history does not support replacing Boileau/Moisant with a simplified 'designed by Eiffel' narrative.
12 · RETAIL HOSPITALITY
Light, orientation and spacious circulation made a very large commercial interior comfortable enough for prolonged browsing.
13 · CATHEDRAL OF COMMERCE
The resulting grand magasin acquired a civic scale and ceremonial quality previously associated with stations, exhibition halls or palaces.
14 · BOUCICAUT BOUNDARY
The Boucicauts authored the retail operating system; Boileau authored the architectural environment that enabled it.
15 · MOISANT BOUNDARY
Moisant owns the specialist engineering/metal-construction layer and receives a separate People master.
16 · WHY GROUP VII
Designers & Architects is unequivocal.
17 · REGISTRY STATUS
No Louis-Charles Boileau People entry was identified in the current LHL register context; no number is invented.
18 · CANDOUR
Le Bon Marché evolved through several construction phases. LHL avoids attributing every surviving part of today's complex to Boileau and limits his credit to the documented nineteenth-century architectural layer.
19 · CONCLUSION
Boileau helped invent the room required by modern retail. The Boucicauts could promise abundance and free browsing only if architecture could hold the crowd, illuminate the merchandise and make an enormous store feel inviting. ## Sources 1. Le Bon Marché · Architecture — https://www.lebonmarche.com/en/lbm-gazette-architecture-eiffel-bon-marche.html 2. Cité de l'architecture / archival references · Louis-Charles Boileau — https://www.citedelarchitecture.fr/