Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
Encyclopedia
Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879) was a French architect
and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings. Born in Paris
, he was a major Gothic Revival architect.
were attended by Stendhal
and Sainte-Beuve. His mother's brother, Étienne-Jean Delécluze
, "a painter in the mornings, a scholar in the evenings" (Summerson), was largely in charge of the young man's education. Viollet-le-Duc was trendy philosophically: republican, anti-clerical, rebellious, he built a barricade in the July Revolution
of 1830 and refused to enter the École des Beaux-Arts
. Instead he opted in favor of direct practical experience in the architectural offices of Jacques-Marie Huvé
and Achille-François-René Leclère
.
During the early 1830s, a popular sentiment for the restoration of medieval buildings developed in France. Viollet-le-Duc, returning during 1835 from study in Italy, was commissioned by Prosper Merimée
to restore the Romanesque abbey of Vézelay
. This work was the first of a long series of restorations; Viollet-le-Duc's restorations at Notre Dame de Paris
brought him national attention. His other main works include Mont St-Michel, Carcassonne
, Roquetaillade castle and Pierrefonds.
Viollet-le-Duc's "restorations" frequently combined historical fact with creative modification. For example, under his supervision, Notre Dame was not only cleaned and restored but also "updated," gaining its distinctive third tower (a type of flèche
) in addition to other smaller changes. Another of his most famous restorations, the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne
, was similarly enhanced, gaining atop each of its many wall towers, a set of pointed roofs that are actually more typical of northern France.
At the same time, in the cultural atmosphere of the Second Empire theory necessarily became diluted in practice: Viollet-le-Duc provided a Gothic reliquary
for the relic of the Crown of Thorns
at Notre-Dame in 1862, and yet Napoleon III also commissioned designs for a luxuriously appointed railway carriage from Viollet-le-Duc, in 14th-century Gothic style (Exhibition 1965).
Among his restorations were:
Restoration of the Château de Pierrefonds
, reinterpreted by Viollet-le-Duc for Napoleon III
, was interrupted by the departure of the Emperor in 1870.
are framed in the dualism of the retention of the status quo versus a "restoration" that creates something that never actually existed in the past. John Ruskin
was a strong proponent of the former sense, while his contemporary, Viollet-le-Duc, advocated for the latter instance. Viollet-le-Duc wrote that restoration is a "means to reestablish [a building] to a finished state, which may in fact never have actually existed at any given time." The type of restoration employed by Viollet-le-Duc was decried by John Ruskin as "a destruction out of which no remnants can be gathered: a destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed."
This argument is still a current one when restoration is being considered for a building or landscape. In removing layers of history from a building, information and age value are also removed which can never be recreated. However, adding features to a building, as Viollet-le-Duc also did, can be more appealing to modern viewers.
Throughout his career Viollet-le-Duc made notes and drawings, not only for the buildings he was working on, but also on Romanesque
, Gothic
and Renaissance
buildings that were to be soon demolished. His notes were helpful in his published works. His study of medieval and Renaissance periods was not limited to architecture, but extended to furniture, clothing, musical instruments, armament, geology and so forth.
All this work was published, first in serial, and then as full-scale books, as:
Viollet-le-Duc is considered by many to be the first theorist of modern architecture
. Sir John Summerson
wrote that "there have been two supremely eminent theorists in the history of European architecture—Leon Battista Alberti and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc."
His architectural theory was largely based on finding the ideal forms for specific materials, and using these forms to create buildings. His writings centered on the idea that materials should be used 'honestly'. He believed that the outward appearance of a building should reflect the rational construction of the building. In Entretiens sur l'architecture, Viollet-le-Duc praised the Greek temple
for its rational representation of its construction. For him, "Greek architecture served as a model for the correspondence of structure and appearance." There is speculation that this philosophy was heavily influenced by the writings of John Ruskin
, who championed honesty of materials as one of the seven main emphases of architecture.
In several unbuilt projects for new buildings, Viollet-le-Duc applied the lessons he had derived from Gothic architecture
, applying its rational structural systems to modern building materials such as cast iron. He also examined organic structures, such as leaves and animal skeletons, for inspiration. He was especially interested in the wings of bats, an influence represented by his Assembly Hall project.
Viollet-le-Duc’s drawings of iron trusswork were innovative for the time. Many of his designs emphasizing iron would later influence the Art Nouveau
style, most noticeably in the work of Hector Guimard
. His writings inspired some American architects, including Frank Furness
, John Wellborn Root
, Louis Sullivan
, and Frank Lloyd Wright
.
(1870-1). He was so influenced by the conflict that during his later years he described the idealized defense of France by the analogy of the military history of Le Roche-Pont, an imaginary castle, in his work Histoire d'une Forteresse (Annals of a Fortress, twice translated into English). Accessible and well researched, it is partly fictional.
Annals of a Fortress strongly influenced French military defensive thinking. Viollet-le-Duc's critique of the effect of artillery
(applying his practical knowledge from the 1870-1871 war) is so complete that it accurately describes the principles applied to the defence of France until World War II
. The physical results of his theories are present in the fortification of Verdun
prior to World War I
and the Maginot Line
prior to WWII. His theories are also represented by the French military theory of "Deliberate Advance", such that artillery and a strong system of fortresses
in the rear of an army are essential.
, have become very controversial because they were not intended so much to recreate a historical situation accurately as to create a "perfect building" of medieval style: "to restore an edifice", he observed in the Dictionnaire raisonné, "is not to maintain it, repair or rebuild it, but to re-establish it in a complete state that may never have existed at a particular moment". The idea and the very word restoration applied to architecture Viollet-le-Duc considered part of a modern innovation. Modern conservation practice considers Viollet-le-Duc's restorations too free, too personal, too interpretive, but some of the monuments he restored might have been lost otherwise.
The English architect Benjamin Bucknall
(1833–95) was a devotee of Viollet-le-Duc and during 1874-81 translated several of his publications into English to popularise his principles in Great Britain.
An exhibition, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc 1814–1879 was presented in Paris, 1965, and a larger, centennial exhibition, 1980.
, Switzerland
, where he constructed a villa (since destroyed). He died there in 1879.
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings. Born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, he was a major Gothic Revival architect.
Early years
Viollet-le-Duc's father was a civil servant living in Paris who collected books; his mother's Friday salonsSalon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
were attended by Stendhal
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...
and Sainte-Beuve. His mother's brother, Étienne-Jean Delécluze
Étienne-Jean Delécluze
Etienne-Jean Delécluze was a French painter and critic.From 1797 on, he was a pupil of Jacques-Louis David, as he describes in his biography of David...
, "a painter in the mornings, a scholar in the evenings" (Summerson), was largely in charge of the young man's education. Viollet-le-Duc was trendy philosophically: republican, anti-clerical, rebellious, he built a barricade in the July Revolution
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...
of 1830 and refused to enter the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
. Instead he opted in favor of direct practical experience in the architectural offices of Jacques-Marie Huvé
Jacques-Marie Huvé
Jacques-Marie Huvé was a French architect who practiced in Paris, working in a neoclassical manner that he refined working in the atelier of Percier and Fontaine, Napoleon's chief architects....
and Achille-François-René Leclère
Achille-François-René Leclère
Achille-François-René Leclère was a French architect and teacher of architecture.Achille Leclère studied architecture under Charles Percier and Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand. After finishing his studies, he won the 1808 Premier Grand Prix de Rome where the final round topic was, "Public baths in...
.
Restoration work
Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée was a French dramatist, historian, archaeologist, and short story writer. He is perhaps best known for his novella Carmen, which became the basis of Bizet's opera Carmen.-Life:...
to restore the Romanesque abbey of Vézelay
Vézelay Abbey
Vézelay Abbey was a Benedictine and Cluniac monastery in Vézelay in the Yonne département in Burgundy, France. The Benedictine abbey church of Ste-Marie-Madeleine Vézelay Abbey (now known as Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine) was a Benedictine and Cluniac monastery in Vézelay in the Yonne...
. This work was the first of a long series of restorations; Viollet-le-Duc's restorations at Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...
brought him national attention. His other main works include Mont St-Michel, Carcassonne
Carcassonne
Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century,...
, Roquetaillade castle and Pierrefonds.
Viollet-le-Duc's "restorations" frequently combined historical fact with creative modification. For example, under his supervision, Notre Dame was not only cleaned and restored but also "updated," gaining its distinctive third tower (a type of flèche
Flèche
A flèche is used in French architecture to refer to a spire and in English to refer to a lead-covered timber spire, or spirelet. These are placed on the ridges of church or cathedral roofs and are usually relatively small...
) in addition to other smaller changes. Another of his most famous restorations, the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne
Carcassonne
Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century,...
, was similarly enhanced, gaining atop each of its many wall towers, a set of pointed roofs that are actually more typical of northern France.
At the same time, in the cultural atmosphere of the Second Empire theory necessarily became diluted in practice: Viollet-le-Duc provided a Gothic reliquary
Reliquary
A reliquary is a container for relics. These may be the physical remains of saints, such as bones, pieces of clothing, or some object associated with saints or other religious figures...
for the relic of the Crown of Thorns
Crown of Thorns
In Christianity, the Crown of Thorns, one of the instruments of the Passion, was woven of thorn branches and placed on Jesus Christ before his crucifixion...
at Notre-Dame in 1862, and yet Napoleon III also commissioned designs for a luxuriously appointed railway carriage from Viollet-le-Duc, in 14th-century Gothic style (Exhibition 1965).
Among his restorations were:
- Churches :
- Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, VézelayVézelayVézelay is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France. It is a defendable hill town famous for Vézelay Abbey. The town and the Basilica of St Magdelene are designated UNESCO World Heritage sites....
- St.Martin, ClamecyClamecy, NièvreClamecy is a commune in the Nièvre department in central France.Clamecy is the capital of an arrondissement in the department of Nièvre, at the confluence of the Yonne and Beuvron and on the Canal du Nivernais, 46 m. N.N.E...
(Nievre) - Notre-Dame de Paris
- Sainte-ChapelleSainte-ChapelleLa Sainte-Chapelle is the only surviving building of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion Relics, including the Crown of Thorns - one of the most important relics in medieval...
, in Paris (under Felix DubanFélix DubanJacques Félix Duban was a French architect, the contemporary of Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Henri Labrouste.Duban won the Prix de Rome in 1823, the most prestigious award of the École des Beaux-Arts...
) - Saint Denis BasilicaSaint Denis BasilicaThe Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis is a large medieval abbey church in the commune of Saint-Denis, now a northern suburb of Paris. The abbey church was created a cathedral in 1966 and is the seat of the Bishop of Saint-Denis, Pascal Michel Ghislain Delannoy...
, near Paris - Saint-Louis, in PoissyPoissyPoissy is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the center.In 1561 it was the site of a fruitless Catholic-Huguenot conference, the Colloquy at Poissy...
, France - Semur
- Saint-Nazaire, in CarcassonneCarcassonneCarcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century,...
, France - Saint-Sernin, in ToulouseToulouseToulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
, France - Notre-Dame de LausanneLausanneLausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Switzerland
- Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, Vézelay
- Town Halls :
- Saint-Antonin
- NarbonneNarbonneNarbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Once a prosperous port, it is now located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...
- Castles :
- RoquetailladeRoquetailladeRoquetaillade is a commune in the Aude department in southern France.-Population:...
, in Bordeaux - PierrefondsPierrefondsPierrefonds may refer to:* Pierrefonds, Oise commune in Oise, France** Château de Pierrefonds, castle in Pierrefonds, restored by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc* Pierrefonds-Roxboro, a borough of Montreal, Canada...
- Fortified city of CarcassonneCarcassonneCarcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century,...
- Château de CoucyChâteau de CoucyThe Château de Coucy is a French castle in the commune of Coucy-le-Château-Auffrique, in the département of Aisne, built in the 13th century and renovated by Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th...
- Antoing in Belgium
- Château de VincennesChâteau de VincennesThe Château de Vincennes is a massive 14th and 17th century French royal castle in the town of Vincennes, to the east of Paris, now a suburb of the metropolis.-History:...
, Paris
- Roquetaillade
Restoration of the Château de Pierrefonds
Château de Pierrefonds
The Château de Pierrefonds is a castle situated in the commune of Pierrefonds in the Oise département of France. It is on the southeast edge of the Forest of Compiègne, north of Paris, between Villers-Cotterêts and Compiègne....
, reinterpreted by Viollet-le-Duc for Napoleon III
Napoleon III of France
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...
, was interrupted by the departure of the Emperor in 1870.
Influence on historic preservation
Basic intervention theories of historic preservationHistoric preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
are framed in the dualism of the retention of the status quo versus a "restoration" that creates something that never actually existed in the past. John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
was a strong proponent of the former sense, while his contemporary, Viollet-le-Duc, advocated for the latter instance. Viollet-le-Duc wrote that restoration is a "means to reestablish [a building] to a finished state, which may in fact never have actually existed at any given time." The type of restoration employed by Viollet-le-Duc was decried by John Ruskin as "a destruction out of which no remnants can be gathered: a destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed."
This argument is still a current one when restoration is being considered for a building or landscape. In removing layers of history from a building, information and age value are also removed which can never be recreated. However, adding features to a building, as Viollet-le-Duc also did, can be more appealing to modern viewers.
Publications
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
, Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
and Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
buildings that were to be soon demolished. His notes were helpful in his published works. His study of medieval and Renaissance periods was not limited to architecture, but extended to furniture, clothing, musical instruments, armament, geology and so forth.
All this work was published, first in serial, and then as full-scale books, as:
- Dictionary of French Architecture from 11th to 16th Century (1854–1868) (Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XIe au XVe siècle) - Original language edition, including numerous illustrations.
- Dictionary of French Furnishings (1858–1870) (Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français de l'époque Carolingienne à la Renaissance.)
- Entretiens sur l'architecture (in 2 volumes, 1858–72), in which Viollet-le-Duc systematized his approach to architecture and architectural education, in a system radically opposed to that of the Ecole des Beaux-ArtsÉcole des Beaux-ArtsÉcole des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
, which he had avoided in his youth and despised. In Henry Van BruntHenry Van BruntHenry Van Brunt FAIA was a 19th-century American architect and architectural writer.-Life and work:Born in Boston in 1832, Van Brunt attended Boston Latin School, and graduated from Harvard College in 1854...
's translation, the "Discourses on Architecture" was published in 1875, making it available to an American audience little more than a decade after its initial publication in France. - Histoire de l'habitation humaine, depuis les temps préhistoriques jusqu'à nos jours (1875). Published in English in 1876 as Habitations of Man in All Ages. Viollet-Le-Duc traces the history of domestic architecture among the different "races" of mankind.
- L'art russe: ses origines, ses éléments constructifs, son apogée, son avenir (1877), where Viollet-le-Duc applied his ideas of rational construction to Russian architecture.
Architectural theory and new building projects
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
. Sir John Summerson
John Summerson
Sir John Newenham Summerson CH CBE was one of the leading British architectural historians of the 20th century....
wrote that "there have been two supremely eminent theorists in the history of European architecture—Leon Battista Alberti and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc."
His architectural theory was largely based on finding the ideal forms for specific materials, and using these forms to create buildings. His writings centered on the idea that materials should be used 'honestly'. He believed that the outward appearance of a building should reflect the rational construction of the building. In Entretiens sur l'architecture, Viollet-le-Duc praised the Greek temple
Greek temple
Greek temples were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in Greek paganism. The temples themselves did usually not directly serve a cult purpose, since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective deity took place outside them...
for its rational representation of its construction. For him, "Greek architecture served as a model for the correspondence of structure and appearance." There is speculation that this philosophy was heavily influenced by the writings of John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
, who championed honesty of materials as one of the seven main emphases of architecture.
In several unbuilt projects for new buildings, Viollet-le-Duc applied the lessons he had derived from Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
, applying its rational structural systems to modern building materials such as cast iron. He also examined organic structures, such as leaves and animal skeletons, for inspiration. He was especially interested in the wings of bats, an influence represented by his Assembly Hall project.
Viollet-le-Duc’s drawings of iron trusswork were innovative for the time. Many of his designs emphasizing iron would later influence the Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
style, most noticeably in the work of Hector Guimard
Hector Guimard
Hector Guimard was an architect, who is now the best-known representative of the French Art Nouveau style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries....
. His writings inspired some American architects, including Frank Furness
Frank Furness
Frank Heyling Furness was an acclaimed American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his eclectic, muscular, often idiosyncratically scaled buildings, and for his influence on the Chicago architect Louis Sullivan...
, John Wellborn Root
John Wellborn Root
John Wellborn Root was an American architect who worked out of Chicago with Daniel Burnham. He was one of the founders of the Chicago School style...
, Louis Sullivan
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
, and Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
.
Military career and influence
Viollet-le-Duc had a second career in the military, primarily in the defence of Paris during the Franco-Prussian WarFranco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
(1870-1). He was so influenced by the conflict that during his later years he described the idealized defense of France by the analogy of the military history of Le Roche-Pont, an imaginary castle, in his work Histoire d'une Forteresse (Annals of a Fortress, twice translated into English). Accessible and well researched, it is partly fictional.
Annals of a Fortress strongly influenced French military defensive thinking. Viollet-le-Duc's critique of the effect of artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
(applying his practical knowledge from the 1870-1871 war) is so complete that it accurately describes the principles applied to the defence of France until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The physical results of his theories are present in the fortification of Verdun
Verdun
Verdun is a city in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Verdun is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital of the department is the slightly smaller city of Bar-le-Duc.- History :...
prior to World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and the Maginot Line
Maginot Line
The Maginot Line , named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defences, which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy, in light of its experience in World War I,...
prior to WWII. His theories are also represented by the French military theory of "Deliberate Advance", such that artillery and a strong system of fortresses
Fortification
Fortifications are military constructions and buildings designed for defence in warfare and military bases. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs...
in the rear of an army are essential.
Legacy
Some of his restorations, such as that of the Château de PierrefondsChâteau de Pierrefonds
The Château de Pierrefonds is a castle situated in the commune of Pierrefonds in the Oise département of France. It is on the southeast edge of the Forest of Compiègne, north of Paris, between Villers-Cotterêts and Compiègne....
, have become very controversial because they were not intended so much to recreate a historical situation accurately as to create a "perfect building" of medieval style: "to restore an edifice", he observed in the Dictionnaire raisonné, "is not to maintain it, repair or rebuild it, but to re-establish it in a complete state that may never have existed at a particular moment". The idea and the very word restoration applied to architecture Viollet-le-Duc considered part of a modern innovation. Modern conservation practice considers Viollet-le-Duc's restorations too free, too personal, too interpretive, but some of the monuments he restored might have been lost otherwise.
The English architect Benjamin Bucknall
Benjamin Bucknall
thumb|240px|right|Woodchester Mansion, GloucestershireBenjamin Bucknall was an English architect of the Gothic Revival in Southwest England and South Wales, and then of neo-Moorish architecture in Algeria...
(1833–95) was a devotee of Viollet-le-Duc and during 1874-81 translated several of his publications into English to popularise his principles in Great Britain.
An exhibition, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc 1814–1879 was presented in Paris, 1965, and a larger, centennial exhibition, 1980.
Later life
In his old age, Viollet-le-Duc relocated to LausanneLausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, where he constructed a villa (since destroyed). He died there in 1879.