Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

Born: 27 January 1814 Paris, France

Profession: French architect , restorer and theorist.

Died:17 September 1879 (aged 65)Lausanne, Switzerland

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Presented by-Aakanksha Gupta(17)

Parul Jain(18)3-B

Early life

Born on 27 January 1814 Paris, France

Viollet-le-Duc's father was Sous-Contrôleur des Services for the Tuileries, a civil servant position, book collector and arts enthusiast.

His mother conducted Friday salons from the family's home where writers such as Stendahl and Prosper Mérimée gathered for readings.

His childhood was influenced with art and literature.

His bachelor uncle, the painter/scholar Étienne-Jean Delécluze, was put in charge of Viollet-le-Duc's education.

He attended Fontenay, a school known for its anti-clerical republicanism.

1830 -He participated in the Revolution of 1830.

1834 - married Elisabeth

1836: Travelled to Italy, spent 16 months studying architecture. Back in Francehe was drawn irrevocably to Gothic art.

1838: J.-B. Lassus trained Viollet-le-Duc as a medieval archaeologist on the restoration of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois.  He was appointed auditor to the Conseil des Bâtiments Civils in under his former teacher, Leclère.

1839 : His friend, the writer Prosper Mérimée, placed him in charge of the restoration of the abbey church of La Madeleine at Vézelay.

Revolution of 1830

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Abbey of la Madaleine, Vézelay The Basilique Ste-Madeleine (Basilica Church

of St. Mary Magdalene) inVézelay is the largest Romanesque church in France.

http://www.histoire-image.org/photo/fullscreen/den45_viollet_001z.jpg

During the French Revolution the ancient monastery buildings were destroyed and sold at auction. Only the basilica, cloister, and dormitory escaped demolition. After the Revolution, Vézelay stood in danger of collapse.

The church was in a sorry state, as shown in a watercolor by Viollet-le-Duc, who was integral to the design of architectural practice: arches chapped, cracked walls, turn left west facade collapsed, etc.. Immediately began the restoration project extends until 1859. 

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Viollet-le-Duc rebuilt much of the building, especially the flying buttresses and arches, and restores the west facade and the choir. 

The west front, a combination of Romanesque, Gothic and 19th-century work. Originally built around 1150 in the Romanesque style, it was given a Gothic central gable and south tower in the 13th century. Much of this was heavily restored in 1840 by Viollet-le-Duc, who also added a Romanesque-style tympanum of the Last Judgment to the central portal.

Central tympanum in the narthex, depicting Pentecost or the Mission of the Apostles. In the center is Christ, inside a mandorla (almond-shaped halo). Bolts of light shoot out from Christ's hands to the apostles' heads. The inner archivolt and the lintel below are populated with the peoples of the world who will hear the message of Christ. These include, on the lintel, the "Monstrous Races" of foreign lands. This provides a fascinating insight into medieval worldviews and popular legends.

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The flying buttresses that support the nave are his work.

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The light-filled Gothic choir at the east end

Floor plan of Vézelay shows the adjustment in vaulting between the choir and the new nave. Black portion represents the new construction. The section below represents the new construction.Under his  supervision a massive and successful restoration was undertaken in several stages between 1840 and 1861, during which his team replaced a great deal of the weathered and vandalized culpture.

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La Sainte Chapelleh

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La Sainte-Chapell The Holy Chapel) is a royal medieval Gothic chapel, located near the Palais de la Cité, on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France.

In 1840s Voillet-Le-Duc took the restoration work of La Sainte Chapelle.

Sainte Chapelle suffered from several fires (1630, 1777) and one flood. Nor did the French Revolution spare it: the outside ornamentation was damaged, especially the spire, whose fleurs-de-lis were considered a symbol of the French monarchy.

Then, during the First Empire, the upper chapel was used as an archive warehouse, which led to severe damage and the stained glass windows were dismantled.

Restorations were made in the second part of the 19th century, led by the architects Félix Duban (from 1836 to 1848), Jean-Baptiste Lassus (from 1848 to 1857) and Emile Boeswillwald. Viollet-le-Duc occasionally cooperated with them without ever leading the project.

The remains of the above mentioned staircase were destroyed (1849) and a new spire was built (1853). In 1857 restoration of the inside ornamentation was almost complete.

Chapelle back in 13th century

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Ste_Chapelle_Basse_s.jpg

Two meters' worth of glass was removed to facilitate working light and destroyed or put on the market. Its well-documented restoration, completed under the direction of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1855, was regarded as exemplary by contemporaries and is faithful to the original drawings and descriptions of the chapel that survive.

Interestingly, the chapel incorporated a form of iron reinforcement, with two ‘chains’ of hooked bars encircling the upper chapel, the main part of the structure. Further, there were iron stabilisers across the nave (with a vertical tension bar).

In the 19th century, a movement of French intellectuals, including Victor Hugo, started campaigning to restore the famous windows. Completed in 1855 under the direction of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the project was considered exemplary by contemporaries. Much of the chapel as it appears today dates from this 19th-century recreation of what restorers at the time thought it might have looked like in the late 13th century.http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/

SB10001424127887323308504579082991871355218

In the 19th century, Viollet-le-Duc restored the chapel. The current spire is his design. The slate roof is topped by a 33-meter-high (108 ft) cedar spire that was crafted but is an exact replica of the 15th century spire that previously sat atop the chapel.

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SPIRE

In analysingNotre Dame at Dijon he showed a section of the nave not only with timber buttresses but with thin columns of cast-iron. This was the kindling spark of thought that he struck for the future.

He showed how new materials might be used in accord with Gothic structural principles to arrive at a new architecture. But, though the new architecture was to be rooted in the past, there was to be no question of revivalism: scientific analysis and independent synthesis were the keys to his doctrine.

http://www.frenchmoments.eu/notredame-cathedral/

Notre Dame at Dijon

The restoration of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris was undertaken by J.B.A. Lassus and Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc in 1845 and continued by Viollet-le-Duc after the death of Lassus in 1857.Viollet-le-Duc had also restored the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and designed a new Chapter House for the the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in 1847.

The restoration lasted twenty five years and included a taller reconstruction of the flèche (a type of spire) which was destroyed during the French revolution. As well as the addition of the chimeras on the Galerie des Chimères.

1844-Notre-Dame,paris

Plan for the Renovation of a Chapel in the Nave of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris

In a number of plans, drawings and sketches, Viollet-le-Duc also made an attempt to revive gothic fittings. 

This is how the major restoration campaign began, often associated with changes in the general architecture, mainly including:• reconstruction of the spire;• restoration of the sculptures (around

fifteen sculptors, including Adolphe Geoffroy-Dechaume, would take part);

• construction of the new sacristy;• installation of new windows by great

master glassworkers (Alfred Gérente, Louis Steinhel, Antoine Husson, Maréchal de Metz, Didron the Elder);

• refurbishment of the central portal to the pre-Soufflot state;

• reconstitution of part of the Treasury and the furniture;

• wall paintings in the side chapels;• complete repair of the great organ.

“To restore an edifice is not to maintain it, repair it or remake it, it is to re-establish it in a complete state that may never have existed at a given moment.” (Viollet-le-Duc)

Nave and transepts completed 1824-1880

Nave to east Choir to west

He deduced that the traceried windows of the 13th century had replaced a shorter plain window & a rounded under the window that represented the third story in a 4-story elevation. Voillet changed the form of the flying buttress along the nave to typical gothic style.

THE SPIRE

During the restoration of the cathedral, he decided to build a second spire, whose structure would be independent from the main cathedral, on an octagonal base supported by the four transept pillars.In 1860, he entrusted the carpenter Bellu with this work. He used the 1852 two-story spire built in Orleans as a model, a clear departure from the 13th century spire. In addition, it is not a bell tower.The spire dominates the verdigris copper statues of the twelve apostles with the symbols of the four evangelists.

http://www.notredamedeparis.fr/local/cache-vignettes/L350xH350/arton32-aae4c.jpg

Gargoyles-The monstrous animals with their fantastic or diabolical pictures set on the top of the cathedral’s western tower to serve as gutters were designed by eugene emmanuel le duc during the lenghty restoration. Viollet le Duc always signed his work with a bat, the wing structure of which most resembles the Gothic vault .

In a number of plans, drawings and sketches, Viollet-le-Duc also made an attempt to revive gothic fittings. Several objects at Notre-Dame de Paris received this treatment including the pulpit, the banc d’oeuvre), the chapel altars and the choir high-altar, the baptismal fonts, the crown of light, the lustres, candelabra and chandeliers, as well as a number of pieces of liturgical silverwork that can be seen in the cathedral Treasury.

• Gargoyles-They were built into the ends of the gutters to drain rainwater off the roof; since the gargoyles extend far off the side of the roof, the litres of rainwater from storms fall far from the walls to prevent damage.

• The chimeras are used as simple decorations. Most of them are on the façade, seated on a gallery, watching the people below and scanning all of Paris.

• The sculptors really used their imagination on these statues. They are animal and human figures, half-man and half-beast, grotesque, horrific, fantastic creatures with eagles’ beaks and wings, lions’ talons, serpents’ tails.

Carcassonne is also of exceptional importance because of the lengthy restoration campaign undertaken in the latter half of the 19th century by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, one of the founders of the modern science of conservation.

City of Carcassonne

http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/thumbs/site_0345_0006-500-334-20090506135520.jpg

Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-Ie-Duc, who had been commissioned to prepare a report as early as 1846, began his restoration work at the Porte Narbonnaise and the Porte de l' Aude, and continued working at Carcassonne until his death in 1879. During this time the internal fortifications were almost entirely restored, along with a number of the towers on the external defences.

Two books made Viollet le Duc famous:

"Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XI au XVe siècle" (1854-1868) In English: Dictionnary of French architecture from 11th to 15th century.

"Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français de l'époque Carolingienne à la Rennaissance (1858-1870). Dictionnary of French furniture.

Later the first book was translated into english under the title of Lecture On Architecture Comprising of 20 lectures these two volumes offered a wealth of invaluable insights into architectural theory and methods of construction.

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• He defined architecture as a response to a structural problem, set by functional needs.

• On one hand, he concluded that gothic architecture was the most effective way to build a church with stone material (maximizing the lightness and highness qualities), on the other one, iron should not be used to fake ancient shapes because these shapes that were highly efficient for stone (the best material available in the Middle ages) are definitely not for iron.

• According to him no country in Europe offered such great variety of materials adapted for building as France.

• From granite to tufa,everything could be employed in masonry was to be found.

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The novel system adopted will enable us to diminish the projection of the buttreses and consequently to make a saving in the foundations.

The employement of cast iron enabled us to dispense with the corbelling in courses of hard stone which wass expensive and shall obtain a building that would present greater security, would be less weighty and would allow a present better circulation of air about the ground-floor.

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These are illustration from his lecture XII where he talks about execution methods of simultanously using stone,bricks and iron at the same time.

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In a postscript to his lesser-known work Histoire d’une Forteresse (1874),Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) describes the diffusion of fortifications brought about by the introduction of ranged artillery. 

Drawing reveals that each individual fort retains the articulation of salients and angles appropriate to smaller arms and closer quarters. The efficacy of the new system was no longer in the solidity of a fixed centrepoint but in the furnishing of a territory.

 

•It is easy to mock Viollet-le-Duc and disparage his theories, and the knowledge they were based upon, but it is as well to remember his aims and his influence on the modern movement of architecture.

•For what he was ultimately concerned to prove was that architecture was a precise, studied affair, whose every form and detail should be thought out in accordance with a rational ideal.

•His method was to isolate the ideal wherever it occurred and to uphold it so that it might inspire an architecture of the nineteenth century that was good—or at least capable of being good. Nor did he flinch from the task of indicating how his rational principles might be applied using the materials and serving the needs of the age.

Summary

Viollet le Duc is not an Art Nouveau architect, he was dead long before the movement began in the early 1890ies. He deserves a place in the Art Nouveau world wide server because his work influenced deeply many AN artists including Guimard, Gaudi, Horta and many others. He served an inspiration to many-

•Frank Lloyd Wright continually acknowledged his debt to the great restorer.

•Mies van der Rohe even has admitted his influence. And if his ideas might seem more closely related to the steel and glass building of this architect.

•Russian constructivist El Lissitsky who found his stimulus in Viollet-le-Duc's L' Art Russe—it is as well to remember that his theories have not been inimical to the creation of such works as the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and the chapel at Ronchamps.

•Antonio Gaudi's highly original architecture was directly inspired by the writings of Viollet-le-Duc.

Inspiration

Bietoletti, Silvestra. Neoclassicism and Romanticism . s.l. : Sterling; 1 edition , (September 1, 2009).

Viollet le Duc, Eugène Emmanuel ,Lectures on Architecture : Volume II. Dover Publications,Inc. Translated by Benjamin Bucknall.

Frank Derville. Viollet le Duc, Eugène Emmanuel. The Art-Nouveau. [Online] 1993-2012. [Cited: november 11th, 2013.] http://artnouveau.pagesperso-orange.fr/en/artistes/vld.htm.

La Sainte Chapelle. Architecture Religieuse En Occident. [Online] [Cited: november 8th, 2013.] http://architecture.relig.free.fr/chapelle_en.htm.

Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/345

REFERENCES