Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène-Emmanuel

Date born: 1814

Place born:  Paris, France

Date died:  1879

Place died: Lausanne, Switzerland

Architectural historian/restorer; major theorist of the Gothic art in 19th-century France; responsible for the "over-restoration" of many Gothic churches in France.  Viollet-le-Duc's father was Sous-Contrôleur des Services for the Tuileries, a civil servant position. His upper-middle class family was connnected with the cultural currents of the day; the author Prosper Mérimée (1803–1870) was a family friend who helped Viollet-le-Duc through his career. His early education was shaped by his uncle, the painter/scholar Eugène Délécluze. Intent on an architectural career, Viollet-le-Duc decided against study at the École des Beaux-Arts, in favor of direct experience in the architect’s office of Jean-Jacques-Marie Huvé (1783–1852), and Achille-François-René Leclère (1785–1853). Between 1831 and 1836 he visited Provence, Normandy, the châteaux of the Loire, as well as the Pyrenees and Languedoc. He married his wife, Elisabeth, in 1834.  The same year he accepted a teaching position at the École de Dessin.  In 1836 he traveled to Italy where he toured Rome, Sicily, Naples and Venice. He returned to Paris in 1837 and studying at the École.  Viollet-le-Duc was appointed auditor to the Conseil des Bâtiments Civils in 1838, under his former teacher, Leclère. The Council controlled all buildings belonging to the State, both their construction and renovation. In 1840 Mérimée, Inspecteur Général des Monuments Historiques, the commission responsible for assigning restoration projects, nominated Viollet-le-Duc for the restoration of the church of the Madeleine, Vézelay. Viollet-le-Duc replaced the later 13th-century pointed vaults with 12th-century semicircular groin vaults in order to give a sense of unity to the nave, but changing the character of the building.  He continued to work on other restorations of churches, many of which had been damaged in the French Revolution and needed sculptural replacement to return them to their didactic ambiance.  In Sainte-Chapelle and in 1844 Notre-Dame de Paris, a commission with his colleague, Jean-Baptiste Lassus (q.v.), Viollet-le-Duc substituted new sculpture for the old, often moving the old to museums.  Notre-Dame marked the first of Viollet-le-Duc extemist interventions in churches, altering building to fit his romantic vision the middle ages. Notre-Dame's famous gargoyles (grotesques), for example, are wholely his inventions. Even in his careful reconstructions, such as recutting sculptural molding (Rheims), 19th-century qualities of these works are apparent.  The "restoration" of these buildings solidified Viollet-le-Duc's stature. He began to publish his theories of the Gothic in Annales archéologiques in 1845. In 1846 he worked on Saint-Denis abbey, Avignon between 1860–68, the cathedrals of Amiens (1849-1875), and Rheims (1861-1873) the churches at Poissy (1852-1865) and Sens.  In 1854 he published his influential Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture. A second important work appeared four years later.  His Entretiens sur l’architecture and Dictionnaire du mobilier of 1858 contained discussion on goldsmiths’ work, musical instruments, jewellery and armor in addition to furniture. His own sketches accompanied the text.  Although generally hailed in his own time for these restorations, Viollet-le-Duc had his detractors, including the sculptor Auguste Rodin.  Viollet-le-Duc assisted on many commissions of the July Monarchy government (1830-1848), and the 1852 imperial court of Napoleon III, introduced by Mérimée.  He maintained a personal architectural practice designing houses, churches and chateaux. Student revolts to his teaching of art history and esthetics at the École des Beaux-Arts resulted in his replacement by Hippolyte Taine (q.v.) in 1864.  His uncle was the art critic and historian, Étienne-Jean Delécluze (q.v.).

Compared to his contemporaries, Viollet-le-Duc stridently opposed the eclecticism so many historians imagined as Gothic style.  In practice, his efforts may appear less than his theory, however. His restoration of the cathedral at Clermont-Ferrand, for example, used the design of rose-window, south transept, of Chartres Cathedral for Clermont-Ferrand's west window, nave aisles configuration of Amiens Cathedral, and Last Judgment tympanum from St Urbain, Troyes.  Yet he was an outspoken critic of eclecticism, particularly in later years when his interests turned to building new village churches.  He devoted a great amount of time to plans for rental housing, the gardener’s house for the Maison Sabatier and his own villa La Vedette at Lausanne (destroyed).

Viollet-le-Duc championed the use of new materials both for contemporary architecture and for his restorations.  Frequently, he "bettered" the monumentsl by using stronger stone or replacing wooden roofs with metal ones.  In his Entretiens he suggested iron for the framework in order to allow areas of transparency as in Gothic architecture, and designs of various hypothetical iron structures were included.  Viollet-le-Duc's Gothic restoration was a rationalist approach to architectural history. He argued that medieval architecture appeared the way it did becuase of structural issues and contemporary medieval techniques of construction. He viewed the early formulation of a common evolutionary cycle in the development of aesthetic forms (Bazin).  In the twentieth century, Achille Carlier (q.v.) launched a particularly virulent critique of Viollet-le-Duc's work.

Home Country:  France

Sources:  Kultermann, Udo.  Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte:  Der Weg einer Wissenschaft.   2nd ed.  Frankfurt am Main and Vienna:  Ullstein, 1981, p. 189; Bazin, Germain.  Histoire de l'histoire de l'art; de Vasari à nos jours.  Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 136-7, 181-184.

Bibliography:  Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle. 10 vols. Paris: Bance, 1854-68.;  Entretiens sur l'architecture . 2 vols., 2 albums. Paris: Q. Morel, 1863-72, English,  Discourses on Architecture. Translated by Benjamin Bucknall. Boston: Milford House, 1973.