Xavier Pascal Coste (November 26, 1787 - February 8, 1879) was a French engineer and architect with a distinguished career in France, North Africa, and the Middle East. Born in Marseilles, Coste showed artistic promise from a young age and studied in the studio of architect Michel-Robert Penchaud (1772 - 1833). In 1814, he entered into the École des Beaux-Arts, where a friend connected him to Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, who took Coste as his personal architect in 1817. Coste would spend most of the next twelve years in Egypt, where the pasha designated him the chief engineer of Lower Egypt. He also published several scholarly works, including a well-received overview of Arab architecture. After returning to France for health reasons in 1829, Coste became a professor of architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he had a long and distinguished career. He was known for a long trip through Persia with painter Eugène Flandin (1809 - 1889). In 1844, he was appointed chief architect of Marseilles. Coste's reputation was such that he was made an officer of the Légion d'honneur shortly before his death.



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