Jean Desbois

• Name — Jean Desbois • Born — 25 August 1891 • Birthplace — Cherbourg, Manche, France • Died — 18 September 1971 • Place of death — Lorient, Morbihan, France • Occupation — Architect

Jean Ernest Louis Desbois born in Cherbourg in the French department of the Manche on August 25, 1891. He was the son of Ernest Auguste Desbois, who was first of all at 20 years old a drawer, and after he became the head of the tax office, and Amélie Marie Pauline Alexandrine Lemonnier. Jean Desbois studied architecture under the direction of Emmanuel Le Ray at the Regional School of Architecture in Rennes, where he was admitted on July 9, 1910, and obtained a 1st class medal in modelling on July 25, 1913. On September 19, 1913, Jean Desbois moved to Paris to become the pupil of Louis Bernier and Emmanuel Pontremoli in Paris. He graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Paris on November 17, 1920, as a member of its 115th promotion with a project titled A bourgeois property (Houses of dwellings) for devastated regions building new housing for areas which had been negatively impacted by the First World War. He first contract in 1919 was a collaboration with the first French woman architect, Jeanne Besson-Surugue, on the renovation of the Palais-Royal.

• Illustration — Jean Desbois was the designer of one of the most iconic landmarks of Phnom Penh, the Phsar Thmey. On March 20, 1922, Jean Desbois started his first job in French Indochina with the Public Works department in Saigon before moving to Phnom Penh in Cambodia where he worked between 1931 and 1937. During his time there, he designed the new Phsar Thmey Central Market in Phnom Penh between 1934 and 1937. Jean Desbois worked with his Excellency King Sisowath Monivong in the 1930s, and notably contributed to the design of the Le Royal Hotel in collaboration with Ernest Hébrard in 1938. He received the honorary title of Knight of the Royal Order of Cambodia in 1924. After building the Central Market in Phnom Penh, Jean Desbois collaborated once again with Louis Chauchon to build a bungalow in Kep, as well as a quarantine pavilion for natives at the Phnom Penh Hospital, security offices in Phnom Penh, the Khmer sports club in Phnom Penh. • Illustration — Jean Desbois's most notorious architectural legacy in France is the facade of the UGC Normandie Cinema built in 1937 on the Champs-Élysées, the largest avenue in Paris. He returned to France in 1937 and designed the concertina facade of the Normandy Cinema Hall on the Champs-Élysées, now known as UGC Normandie, which was then the largest cinema hall in Paris. In 1938, he moved to Hue. On August 7, 1940, Jean Desbois became a Knight of the Imperial Order of the Dragon of Annam by King Bảo Đại.

When he returned to France, Jean Desbois continued his architectural work in the Breton town of Lorient from 1949 until 1962, where he left a lasting landmark, the Catholic church of Saint Joan of Arc in Lorient. Jean Desbois died in Lorient on September 18, 1971.