From the Ground Up is a series on Archinect focused on discovering the early stages & signs of history's most prolific architects. Starting from the beginning allows us to understand the long journey architecture takes in even the most formative of hands and the often, surprising shifts that occur on its journey. These early projects grant us a glimpse into the early, naive, ambitious—and at points, rough—edges of soon to be architectural masters.

Father of Utopian visions, architect of ideal cities, the visionary behind Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, Prisoner and Cafe Designer. All of these fit one name, one historical icon, Claude Nicolas Ledoux. Ledoux, along with Boullée, are considered the fathers of the utopian frameworks that followed. But even utopias are born somewhere; even utopias demand practice and a cafe table sketch. 

The structures these architects imaged were undeniably some of the most ambitious and revolutionary of their time. At their most fantastic, the buildings they envisioned were utterly unbuildable in the physical world, but undoubtedly concrete in their concepts and theories. 

Ledoux's point zero on his climb to utopian heights began with the commisioning of the decoration of Café militaire (or Café Godeau), rue Saint-Honoré, Paris, 1762. The project was the interior renovation of the newly exploding trope of the "coffee houses" that were coming into their own in the 18th century. These newly defined locations were the places of meetings, discussions, and conversations about what the world was to become, the petri dish for the utopian hopes Ledoux would later draw upon. 

even utopias are born somewhere, even utopians demand practice and a cafe table sketch. 

The cafe's internal experience was designed around the image of a military camp post-victory. The decorations all implied a sense of success, tranquility, and abundance. All around the room, the bundles of spears, linked by the leaves of the laurel of victory, form twelve triumphal columns that punctuate the alternation of mirrors and carved panels. Like the helmets and chimeras that crown the beams, the carved decoration of the paneling of height is of ancient and warlike inspiration: trophies of arms, standards, shields with grimace heads of Medusa, laurel wreaths. In contrast to the sinuous and delicate expansion of rockery, Ledoux composes a virile decoration. 

Café militaire would prove to be a modest start for one of architecture history's most revered architects, one whose influence has become a constant if not default reference for many contemporary utopian explorations.