soufflot--when he was commissioned to build the grandest, the noblest church in all of europe-- sainte genevievecalled the pantheon today. actually, you can even see it from here. tradition and reason were also soufflot's concerns. he, too, used freestanding columns to mark out his space and also to do the actual work of supporting the vaults and dome. he wanted to combine the structural elegance of a greek temple with the lightness of a gothic church. here the classical rhythms appear in the nave and aisles, with their rows of corinthian columns. gothic is hinted at in the flying buttresses. he used the same freestanding columns carrying lintels to create a rectangular geometry on the outside, too. this is called post-and-lintel construction. the church was a nightmare to build but is thought of as a masterpiece of french 18th-century architecture. everyone who could went to rome in the 18th century. it seemed to be in the center of the ancient world. it became a new center for art-lovers-- architects, artists, gentlemen and their hangers-on. soufflot went there as a companion of madame de pomp