Auguste Perret (1874-1954), a French architect and building contractor, was one of the first to use concrete as an architecturally significant material, and his works had an important influence upon the International Style of the 1920s in Europe.

Auguste Perret the son of a building contractor, was born at Ixelles near Brussels on February 12, 1874. His early theoretical training came from reading the works of Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, who advocated the reintegration of architectural form and techniques of construction, which had gone separate ways in the 19th century. Perret studied at the École des Beaux-Arts (1891-1895) in Paris in the studio of Julien Guadet, from whom he learned traditional classical composition and theory. Perret left without a degree and joined his father's firm. This, at the death of the elder Perret in 1905, became Perret Frères, including as principals Auguste and his brother Gustave. Perret...