Background

Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc was born in Paris on January 27, 1814.

Education

He was a pupil of Achille Leclere, and in 1836-37 spent a year studying Greek and Roman architecture in Sicily and Rome.

Career

Back in France he was drawn irrevocably to Gothic art. J. -B. Lassus first trained Viollet-le-Duc as a medieval archaeologist on the restoration of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois (1838). In 1839 his friend, the writer Prosper Mérimée, placed him in charge of the restoration of the abbey church of La Madeleine at Vézelay (1840), the first edifice to be restored by a modern state commission. Mérimée, a medievalist of note, was inspector of the recently formed Commission on Historical Monuments, an organization in which Viollet-le-Duc soon became a focal figure. In the early 1840s (through the 1860s) he worked with Lassus on restoring the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, and in 1844 he and Lassus were appointed to restore Notre-Dame de Paris and to build a new sacristy in the Gothic style; this commission was regarded as an official sanction for the Gothic Revival movement in France. Another important early restoration was the work done in 1846 on the abbey church of Saint-Denis. After 1848 he was associated with the Service des Édifices Diocésains, supervising the restoration of numerous medieval buildings, the most important being the Amiens Cathedral (1849), the synodal hall at Sens (1849), the fortifications of Carcassonne (1852), and the church of Saint-Sernin at Toulouse (1862).

Viollet-le-Duc can be said to have dominated 19th-century theories of architectural restoration; his initial aim was to restore in the style of the original, but his later restorations show that he often added entirely new elements of his own design. Twentieth-century archaeologists and restorers have severely criticized these fanciful reconstructions and added structures posing as restorations, for they often destroy or render obscure the original form of the edifice.

Of his original works, all his designs for ecclesiastical buildings were in a weak Gothic style, notably the churches of Saint-Gimer and Nouvelle Aude at Carcassonne and Saint-Denis-de-l’Estrée at Saint-Denis. In his own work, however, he was not a confirmed medieval revivalist, for all but one of his secular buildings are in an uneasy Renaissance mode.

Viollet-le-Duc’s numerous written works, all finely illustrated, provide the foundation on which his distinction rests. He wrote two great encyclopaedic works containing exact structural information and extensive design analysis: Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle (1854–68; “Analytical Dictionary of French Architecture from the XIth to the XVIth Century”) and the Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français de l’époque carlovingienne à la Rénaissance (1858–75; “Analytical Dictionary of French Furniture from the Carlovingians to the Renaissance”). Running to 16 volumes, these two works provided the vital visual and intellectual inspiration required to sustain the Gothic Revival movement. He determined, however, to think his way beyond the Romantic attractions of the Gothic style. Pursuing the inquiries of 18th-century French architectural theorists, he envisaged a rational architecture for the 19th century based on the coherent system of construction and composition that he had observed in Gothic architecture but that would in no way imitate its forms and details. Architecture, he thought, should be a direct expression of current materials, technology, and functional needs. Ironically, he was unable to accept the challenge of his own ideas, for both he and his French disciples continued to design buildings in eclectic styles.

Viollet-le-Duc’s general theory of architecture, which affected the development of modern organic and functional concepts of design, was set forth in his book Entretiens sur l’architecture (1858–72). Translated into English as Discourses on Architecture (1875), this work, containing information on the construction of iron skeletons enclosed by nonbearing masonry walls, especially influenced the late-19th-century architects of the Chicago school, particularly John W. Root. Other important writings by Viollet-le-Duc include L’Art russe (1877; “Russian Art”) and De la décoration appliquée aux édifices (1879; “On Decoration Applied to Buildings”).

Achievements

• He was a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings.
  
  His works were largely restorative and few of his independent building designs were ever realised. Strongly contrary to the prevailing Beaux-Arts architectural trend of his time, much of his design work was largely derided by his contemporaries. He was the architect hired to design the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty

Works

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  • Castles and Warfare in the Middle Ages (Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor)

    ( This profusely illustrated and thoroughly researched bo...)

  • Lectures on Architecture, Volume I (Dover Architecture)

    ( Volume 1 of an unabridged reprint of extremely influent...)

  • The Architectural Theory of Viollet-le-Duc: Readings and Commentaries

    (Among architects and preservationists, the writings of Vi...)

  • Dictionnaire Raisonne de L'Architecture Francaise Du XIE Au Xvie Siecle, Vol. 4 (Classic Reprint) (French Edition)

    (Excerpt from Dictionnaire Raisonne de l'Architecture Fran...)

  • Dictionnaire Raisonne de L'Architecture Francaise Du XIE Au Xvie Siecle, Vol. 6 (Classic Reprint) (French Edition)

    (Excerpt from Dictionnaire Raisonne de l'Architecture Fran...)

  • The habitations of man in all ages. Translated by Benjamin Bucknall

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Lectures On Architecture, Volume 1...

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

Views

Quotations: "The beauty of a structure … [lies in] the judicious use of materials and means at the disposal of the constructor. "

Connections

Uncle:

Étienne-Jean Delécluze

granddaughter :

Geneviève Viollet-le-Duc