impressive structures were built. In the fourteenth century it arrived at a degree of perfection that it has not since shown, and from which it was soon destined to decline. Never have teligious monuments received a character more complete and more suitable, never have they better identified with the sentiments to which they bore witness, never have they better summarized and better understood all the poetry of their epoch. Never, as well, had interior spaces been executed in a grander or more sublime manner, with such sparse and light points of support. Art and science had marched together and mutually assisted one another; the savant and the artist were equally content in viewing these admirable creations. 155 EUGENE-EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC from “On the Construction of Religious Buildings in France” (1844) info a respected family in Paris, trained in his eorly years in drawing by Jean Délecuze, and had every possible benefit of circumstance ond education. Henri Stendhal, Ludovic Vitet, and Prosper Merimée, ‘among mony others, were all regular visitors at the Viollet-le-Duc household, and Mérimée in patticulor was of great assistance in furthering the young architect’s career. Viollet-le-Duc traveled extensively and trained with several architects, and in 1840 he was offered the governmental post of restoring the Romanesque church of the Madeloine at Vezelay. The architect would literally leap to the forefront of the restoration movement in 1844 when he, together with Jean-Baptiste Lassus, won the national competition for the restoration of Notre Dame of Paris. The building had follen into considerable disrepair over the years and in addition had been much damaged during the Revolution. Around he some time, Viollet-le-Duc olso befriended Adolphe-Napoléon Didron, who in May 1844 founded the journal Annales orchéologiques. Didron championed not only the funding of medieval restoration projects by the government but also the need to put them into the hands of qualified architects who possessed a proper historical understanding. To this end he commissioned Viollet-le-Duc, beginning with the first issues, to write a series of historical essays under the above title. This was Viollet-le-Duc’s first serious foray into theory and he used the occasion (over the next 3 years and 9 articles in all) to write what was in effect a lengthy homily of faith to the Gothic movement and its rational principles of construction, The excerpt here is the full preface to the first article nd is notable in two respects. First, there is his rejection ofall architecture development since the sixteenth century, that is, the rejection of both the Renaissance and classical styles for ther lack of logic and originality, Second, though here only voguely implied, isthe suggestion that architects return to the true path of Gothic architecture to find their principles and forms for contemporary design. In a few years hence Viollet-le-Duc would come to reject the imitation of Gothic works, but he would always retain his fervor for its founding rational principles and fationalist spirit. T he most prominent leader of the Gothic movement to emerge in the 1840s was Viollet-le-Duc. He was born Engéne-Emmanvel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-79), from “De la construction des édifices roligieux en France” [On the construction of religious buildings in France, trons. Horry Francis Mellgrave from Annoles Archéologigues (1844), pp. 179-81. VIOLLET-LE-DUC, “RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS IN FRANCE’ 391It should not be thought that archaeological studies are an innovation. They are fo among all people at times when they feel the need to review the past, to gather catalogue all the artistic works left behind by previous generations, and submit them to new examination in order to critique, reform, and select. ii We can scarcely explain how and why the human mind suddenly stops marching foi in order to revisit a past that it hardly knows. Perhaps it is an instinctive feeling of its presen exror and the desire to depart from a false path, Whatever it may be, this return to the past almost always a sign of distress, an extreme resort to which the mind turns when it desp of the present, This expedient occasionally succeeds; history has left us a few examples Egypt under the Ptolemies, Rome under Hadrian, Italy and France in the Renaissa period — they found a method of production by reimmersing themselves in the p ‘These second growths, to use an expression, never have the vigor or the sap of the first they are ofien pale and emaciated. But in the end they are offshoots of a good stock, and well to reserve judgment on them. We are today in one of these periods when, as I noted, some minds — bewildered and lost the chaos of the system that is contradictory, bruised by an extended burst of often justif criticisms, exhausted by ill-starred efforts — have searched the past for a new form. G and England have preceded us in this endeavor: For some 20 years now intellectuals and in our country have made great and laudable efforts to bring to light a multitude of fo facts about these works long disdained. Without allowing themselves to be put off by. difficulties of each genre, they gave to an astonished public the first glimpse of the material in our libraries, archives, museums, and monuments. With this first step taken, societies formed, all those instructed were moved, and the government offered assistance. Despite th devastations of our religious wars and political revolutions, despite the negligence of ou entire century, we found ourselves as rich as Italy, Germany, and England. Each day a ology has seen the expansion of its domain; each day has led to a new discovery, and studies must no longer be limited in order for so much material to be ordered. Monum Jong abandoned had fallen into ruin; we had to conserve them like works of art, like relig or civil monuments. This is where the work of archaeology became really useful, becat false direction, an ignorance of the arts and the ancient techniques, could have led the ar charged with restoration into deplorable errors, more fatal to our monuments than and ence o forgetting them altogether. The peril was imminent; enlightened minds unders and the ministers of the interior and of public instruction formed commissions charged) reviewing these works and stopping the devastation. Wise principles were issue and instru tion became widespread. Archaeology was no longer a vain science; it was organizs administratively and became the center of an immense project. If science must be p here is one of the greatest triumphs that it has ever achieved. We therefore sat down to the work; the principle was good but the application difficult. effect, or order to understand archaeologists, it is necessary that artists themselves s archaeologists. Moreover, these governmental commissions were not able to inquire into of the minute details of a building; they could not examine all of the profiles creat artists, even less their means of execution. They could not ensure that in rebuildi edifice, none of the ancient parts were modified. But for their part, some architects these monuments so long forgotten; they discovered there some great qualities, an profoundly rational and with endless beauty. At first seduced by the charm and the x 392 VIOLLET-LE-DUC, ‘’RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS IN FRANCE”the edifices of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they were led little by little to penetrate further back in time. That is the nature of the human spirit: in historical studies always goes back to the point in time that is closest to it, searching for the cause of the effects that strike it, and tending so to speak, despite itself, toward sources at which it will never be possible to arrive. It therefore happened that artists studied archaeology, came to ciate the value of our ancient monuments and were eager to conserve them. In thing it was a revolution. Architecture has lost all originality since the period of Louis XIV; up to then it had been so national in France. The reign of the great king had the last word for this art, as he had for literature and painting. The principle ~ “The state, it is I’ [L’Etat, c’est moi] - summarizes everything that we can say on this subject. After the great king there was nothing more; he carried away everything to his grave. Let us therefore work or even assist, as much as possible, this small troop of scholars and artists who seek to recover the splendid arts of our forefathers, to pick up that thread severed by the seventeenth and cighteenth centuries. Do not say that they want us to become retrograde, but rather that they want to take up again the true path that some have never abandoned. ‘These studies of the past have already been very productive. Artists who have devoted themselves to the work, first preoccupied with the exterior form and envelope of the monuments they have studied, were soon led to examine the methods that the ancient masons employed. The numerous restorations that have been undertaken, as well as investigations throughout Europe, have already shed some light on the practical arts of these centuries. Faith pledged to this course, so long neglected, has made rapid progress. The discoveries made each day seem to us to be very serious, and should even influence in part the architectural studies that we have thought would be useful for ordering all this information and supporting it with particular observations. The initial work on material so extensive and complicated cannot be complete; but if it only had the advantage of opening the eyes of architects to the techniques that their predecessors employed in construction, and of calling their attention to a practical art, the goal will be served. We should be happy when others, struck as we have been by the profound experience, by good sense, and by the science that presided over the work bequeathed to us by the past centuries, might be able to fill the lacunas left for us or to rectify the errors that we may commit. This survey will perhaps also be able in some cases to focus on the architects charged with restoring ancient monuments. When it is a question of restoring destroyed parts, it will stress to them that in restorations it is as important to conserve the manner of construction adopted by each epoch, as it is to conserve the form of the profiles and ornaments For a long time we have wanted to believe that the monuments raised since the origins of Christianity, and especially since the fall of the Roman Empire, were owed to caprice — sometimes happy, often barbaric, and always ignorant. Trapped by this principle, we did not take the time to study the works judged in such a severe manner; they were, moreover, rather simple. Content with an admiration, exclusive and without choice, for an antiquity of convention, which had only a very distant connection with true antiquity, we should then have to accuse someone of being paradoxical who would come to say: “These disdained monuments of our forefathers are the masterpieces of reason, wisdom, unity, and grandeur. ‘They were raised by men who knew thoroughly the art that they practiced. You will not finda VIOLLET-LE-DUC, “RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS IN FRANCE” 393,single useless stone in all of these grand constructions built to house entire populations; divine work, everything has its place and role, Remove a part and you will destroy the Today people happily do not profess that exclusive rigor that wishes not to see the and the beautiful in the works that we have under our hand. No one is a prophet in his country! Human productions in this regard are like the men, and we have been the Europe to realize that our monuments have some value. Now so that one does not accuse us of being exclusive, let us also applaud and ad antiquity and regard it as endowed with rare good sense. We are convinced that if by Ictinus or Vitruvius would return to the world, they would greatly admire some cathedrals; they would know perfectly well how to recognize their merit. 394 = VIOLLET-LE-DUC, ‘RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS IN FRANCE’own fount. The moment had come where the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance, and was absorbed in this ardent and fecund movement, in which antiquity enthusiastically came to dissipate the gloom of ten centuries. What! Will Gothic be our national art! And must we repudiate all the advances that have been made since! What! Was French genius so limited that since the fifteenth century our art has lost all its originality or character! We cannot believe it. Art in general, and architecture in particular, are subject to the impulse of ideas that propels the epoch in which they are created. Architecture, we have already had the occasion to note, is the most faithful interpretation of the principles, habits, and spirit of a civilized nation; it is with architecture as with language, and if this comparison has already often been made, it is because there is nothing more exact and more striking. If the Renaissance was accomplished in French architecture, it was because it was at the same time accomplished in our habits, in our institutions, and in our literature. Children of the Roman civilization, we have all borrowed from antiquity; therefore, who is to say that we have not retained a proper originality? Is the French language not formed of Greek, Latin, and Italian elements, and is it therefore not appropriate to the French spirit? But let us not be deceived. If the art of the Middle Ages itself brought some fame to our country, it is because it had remained for such a long time under the influence of the traditions and models of antiquity. One should not suppose that we are unable to recognize the range, grandeur, and originality of these marvelous productions of Christian art; while professing a deep sympathy for the efforts and the goal of the Renaissance. We are ready to concede that it had a false and shabby side and that, directed by a spirit of imitation a little too pronounced, it did not realize all that it was possible to achieve. But what we will never understand is how one is able to reject its spirit and contest its happy effects. 204 EUGENE-EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC from “On the Construction of Religious Buildings in France” (1845) Archéologiques both set out his rationalist conception of medieval architecture and at the same time placed it within a dialectical system of structural reasoning unseen in earlier historical onclyses. History for many later Saint-Simonians had become a process of linear evolution, always pointing forward; for Viollet-le-Duc, however, it remined hieratic ond defined by key organic or vital moments, suchas the Greek and the Gothic periods. Vilet- le-Duc’s journey through his historical analyses is thus one of revelation: the successive unfolding of rational decisions ond innovations, all of which raised Gothic architecture to sublime heights. Above all the style wos and remains French, that is, particularly adopted fo the French climate, French materials, and the genius of the French N otwithstanding the criticisms of Lenoir and Vaudoyer, Viollet-le-Duc in his nine articles from the Annales fugéne-Emmanvel Viole-4e-Duc, from “De lo construction des édifces religieux en Fronce”” [On the construction of religious buildings in France) from ‘Annales Archéologiques, Vol. I (1845), pp. 136-8, rons. Harry Francs Mallgrave, 508 VIDLLET-LE-DUC, ‘RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS IN FRANCE”people. The following excerpt, from near the end of his second chapter, speaks to the moment when Romanesque architecture, such os seen in the church at Ve lay, makes its crucial transition to the Gothic style with its more complex system of vaulting supported by flying buttresses. The consequences of this new system were such that in less than 40 years Gothic architec- ture achieved its development, arrived at its greatest perfection, and came to be regarded as an “art” subject to fixed “rules,” to an “order,” taking this word in its true sense, Thus we scarcely need to repeat that the beautiful period of Gothic architecture must be studied with all the care, all the respect, and all the attention that we have put and are putting into the study of antique monuments, The great problem that the architects of the twelfth century had to struggle with in order to raise vaults on tall walls, the efforts that they made, and the admirable results that they obtained ~ these issues must be for us a subject of conscientious research. There are many things to understand about this time, many things to observe: there is a science and an art unknown until then and lost today; even though we believe we know everything, we have so many things to rediscover. The discovery and use of the flying buttress completed a revolution that transpired over a century. We see the Romanesque tradition rapidly giving way. Materials, their use, the manner of cutting them, construction, ornaments, profiles ~ all were changed, subjected to new laws and to new proportions. ‘The caprice that we meet so frequently in the monu- ments of the tenth and eleventh centuries gave way to strict rules that appear to have come out of a “school.” ‘Toward the end of the twelfih century and the beginning of the thirteenth century, nothing was left to chance, to the whim of the artist or worker: each profile had its Place, its function. Ornaments, distributed with a certain parsimony, are found only in some Parts of the edifice, such as in the capitals, under the dripstones of the cornices, in the groves of the archivolts of the doorways, on the crowns of the buttresses, along the gable, under the Spring of the vaults. The statuary itself was subject to an order: it omy occupies certain hallowed places where it cannot be distracted. It is limited in dimensions that scarcely exceed human dimensions. Finally, we find during this period an “art,” if not also as much beauty (this is a matter of taste that we do not intend to discuss) as Greek art of the good period; it is not less limited, or less reasoned, o less knowing, or less correct or wise. We know there are, stil today, many for whom this assertion may appear as a paradox, if not a grave error. We understand the objections that will be made, and we shall try to respond here. First of all we pose this question: Is it the form or the spirit of antique architecture that must be studied? It is both, some will say, but not form to the detriment of the spirit. Unfortunately this is a mistake too often made. The first sentiment that we experience when we see and study the best Greek monuments of antiquity is a profound admiration for their “good sense,” for the pure and simple reason, “devoid of poetry.” that presides in these structures. But to what end has this reason and “good sense’ led these Greek architects? To using the materials at their disposal according to their strength, their nature, and their quality; to fulfill the given program; to submit their buildings to the uses and customs of their citizens, to limit the dimensions required by these uses; to make only the necessary expenditure, to put equal care in the execution of all the parts of the edifices, to take a thousand precautions in order to avoid all the causes of ruin, Here is the “spirit” of Greek architecture, Here is what this architecture teaches us first and above all else: before the art of profiling a capital or an entablature, or decorating a frieze or a pediment. Therefore if we VIOLLET-LE-DUC, “RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS IN FRANCE” 509follow the “spirit” and not the form, if we use our materials and take into account their qualities, if we satisfy the program of "where we live,” if we limit ourselves to our uses and our customs, if we moderate our expenses, then on the day thar someone asks us for a church, will we design a Greek temple? Certainly not. And what monuments satisfy all these conditions better than our edifices of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries! By virtue of good sense, reason, understanding of materials, their proper use, antique monuments differed essentially by their form. Is that not a quality? Needs, uses, climate, different materials, a new religion ~ are they nothing? Must not everything modify the form of architecture? Certainly nothing is more logical. Reason and good sense will always and everywhere be the same; it is the “spirit” that must always govern every human work, and especially with an art as positive as architecture. But with customs, religions, and different climates the “form” is infinite. Thus let the men of the thirteenth century have their art here, like the Greeks had theirs under Pericles. To prefer the Greek form to the Gothic form is the matter of taste, But do not deny our fathers their wisdom, reason, good sense, knowledge, and experience, because they possessed these qualities to a high degree, and pethaps they even had more of the spirit of antiquity than all of those who have imitated them since the Renaissance. 205 CESAR DALY from “On Liberty in Art” (1847) new forum for debate wos opened in France in 1840 with the creation of the Revue générale de architecture et des travaux publics. ls founding editor and publisher, César Daly, was born in Verdun, the son of a French noblewoman and Irish sea captain. He was first schooled in Englond but in the early 1830s he was back in France and studying under Félix Duban in Poris. During this period Daly also pledged his efforts to realizing the ideas of Chorles Fourier, who, like Saint-Simon before him, placed great emphasis on a new ond ‘organic architectural style arising from the radical reformation of existing patterns of social existence cond from constant evolutionary development. In his architectural thinking, Daly was close to the circle of Duban, Lobrouste, and Vaudoyer, although he differed from them in some of his strong futurist views. In the 1840s Daly's position was, however, still evolving. He was never an ideologue or partisan of a porticular style and he was not entirely inimical to the Gothic crcl of Viollet-le-Duc — who wrote several articles for the Revue générale, beginning in 1851. But in this artide of 1847, Daly announces hs firm rejection of the Gothic Revival in France. His opponent in this instance is Ludovic Vitet,o historian ‘and friend of Viollet-le-Duc, and the first Inspecteur des monuments historiques. If Vitet’s position regarding the Gothic is somewhat more complex than Doly makes it out to be, this passage nevertheless launches Doly’s campaign that would eventually be directed at both Gothic enthusiasts and the declining classical school, represented by the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. ar Day (1811-94), from “De la bet dons Var (nbberty in ort]: A Monsieur Ludovic Vie in Revue générole de Iarchitecure et ds ova publics, Vol il (1847), pp. 393-4, tras. Harry Francis Malgrave. 510 DALY, ‘ON LIBERTY IN ART’‘The variations that it is able to ascertain appear insufficient, because the public does not completely appreciate the merits of the forms of our stone buildings. But this new material that comes before us will require new forms and new proportions, because it differs essentially from all those materials that have been employed in buildings up to now. Whaat is suited to stone will in no way be suited to iron, In the industrial world, therefore, there is not the principle of a complete renovation of the art, but of new elements, of a new branch that is no doubt destined to considerable development and progress, to which it seems impossible to assign any limits. Science will equally be called upon here to exercise a direct influence on architecture, and it will not allow iron to undergo the long period of trial and error that it had to go through before it found the forms and the Proportions most convenient for stone construction. It will immediately give what — deprived of its assistance ~ we might otherwise have to put off until after long and expensive efforts. Science will not dictate absolute laws; it will not fix the harmonious proportions that are outside of its province. It will not dominate art, but it will elaborate the bases on which feeling supports its creations, it will set the limits between which architectural taste will freely act. 207 EUGENE-EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC from “Architecture” in Reasoned Dictionary (1854) y the early 1850s Viollet-le-Duc was already beginning to revise his earlier position. He was no longer committed to the Gothic revival in the sense of advocating the imitation of Gothic forms, but he sill believed that a renewal of contemporary practice could be brought about by employing the rational constructional ‘onalysis that had been a feature of Gothic architecture. This phase of his theory appears in the first volume of the ten-volume Dictionnaire raisonné de Vorchitecture francais du XP av XVP siécle (1854-68) — one of the great scholarly efforts of the nineteenth century. His objective in this dictionary is not to provide models for contemporary use, but to dissect France's medieval legacy for its “imperious laws of logic’ ond “native originality ond independence that derives from our national genius.” As the following excerpt from his article “Architecture” demonstrates, Gothic architecture is to be admired in particular for what it discloses of the French mind and French spirit, a rationalist legacy therefore unique to France. We must take into account the particular character of an important part of France if we are ever going to understand the great movement in the arts that burst out around the end of the twelfth century. We can only make reference to it generally here, since we will deal with it in connection with our analysis of each specific topic and of the forms adopted by each type of architecture. It is necessary to point out, though, that this great movement in the arts Exgéne-Emmonvel Villte-Duc, from “Architecture,” in Dicionnire raisonné do Vorchitecur francais du XP au XVP sce (1854), trons. Keaneth D. Whitehead, in The Foundations of Architecue: Selections trom the Dictionnaire raisonné. New York: George Brazile, 1990, pp. 72-4. © 1980 ‘by George Brazile, Inc. Reprinted with permission of George Braziler, Inc. VIOLLET-LE-DUC, ‘ARCHITECTURE’ IN REASONED DICTIONARY 513remained confined within specific limits so long as architecture, in both theory and practice, remained in the hands of the religious establishments. In that situation, everything contributed to keeping it within bounds: compulsory traditions that had to be followed; the rigor of life in the cloister; the reforms attempted and carried out among the clergy during the eleventh and part of the twelfth centuries. Once architecture had passed out of the hands of the clergy into the hands of the laity, however, the national genius was not slow in quickly making itself dominant. Eager to free itself from the Romanesque envelope in which it found so little comfort, the national genius ended up stretching the boundaries of that envelope until they burst. One of the earliest efforts in that direction involved the construc: tion of vaults. What was needed was to try to take advantage of the rather confused results that had been obtained up to that point; this goal had to be pursued with the same rigorous logic that characterized all intellectual efforts in that era. The basic principle, which we have already developed in the entry “Flying Buttress,” was that vaults exert oblique thrusts; thus it. was necessary, in order to maintain them in place, to construct a counter oblique resistance. By the middle of the twelfth century, builders had already recognized that the round, or semicircular, arch had too great a thrust to allow it to be raised to great heights on thin walls or separate pillars, especially over large open spaces, without enormous piers or abutments. So they replaced the round arch with the pointed arch. They continued to use the round arch only for windows or narrow spans. They abandoned the barrel vault entirely, since its thrust could be supported only by a continuous abutment. Reducing the points of resistance of their structures to the piers, they ingeniously arranged it so that all the weight and thrust of their vaults were conducted to these piers, which they then supported by independent flying buttresses, which transferred to the outside all the weight of these large edifices. To provide a firmer foundation for their piers or separate buttresses, they charged them with supplementary weight, out of which they then fashioned some of their richest decorative motifs. As they thus progressively reduced the mass of their structures, they recognized the tremendous resistance strength that the pointed arch possessed while, at the same time, it had oply a slight separating action. Accordingly, they began to use the pointed arch everywhere, totally abandoning the round arch, even in civil architecture. From the beginning of the thirteenth century on, then, architecture developed in accord- ance with a wholly new method ~ a method in which all the related parts could be rigorously deduced, one from the other. Now, it is by means of such changes of method as this that revolutions in the sciences and in the arts begin. Construction dictates form: piers destined to carry several arches will have as many separate columns as there are arches; these columns will have a greater or a lesser diameter depending upon the weight they must carry, and they will be raised up to the vaults that they are designed to support; their capitals, too, will assume an importance proportionate to the load they carry. Arches will be wide or slender, or will rest upon one or several rows of springers, depending upon their function. Walls, having become superfluous, will disappear completely in the most magnificent constructions, to be replaced by gratings decorated with stained glass. Everything that is necessary to the construction will become just another motif for decoration: roofs, water spouts, the introduction of daylight, the means of access and circulation on different stories of the building, even its ironwork, supporting structures, sealing, leading, heating, and ventilation. All these things will not be concealed, as has been a regular construction practice since the sixteenth century; they will, moreover, be kept right out in the open, and, through 514 VIOLLET-LE-DUC, ‘“ARCHITECTURE'’ IN REASONED DICTIONARYvarious ingenious methods, they will contribute to the total richness of the architecture — always taking for granted, of course, the level of good taste that will invariably govern how they are decorated. There will, in short, never be any mere ornament that could really have been dispensed with in one of these exquisite structures of the beginning of the thirteenth century. Each and every ornament will also represent the fulfillment of some specific need. If we move outside France and look at some of the imitations of these French buildings, though, we will encounter some rather strange things; for these imitations are often found to have copied the mere forms without any inner understanding of why an architectural member has taken the form that it has. Consideration of this fact may serve to explain how it is that, in accordance with our national habit of always trying to seek our good at a distance somewhere (as if distance somehow enhanced value), the loftiest criticisms of the type of architecture commonly styled “Gothic” almost always have in view the cathedrals of Milan, Siena, Florence, or certain German churches. It never seems to occur to such critics of the “Gothic” to take a trip of a few short miles, where they could seriously study the actual structure and features of the cathedrals of Amiens, Chartres, or Reims. French architecture of the Middle Ages should surely not be studied in those places where it was nothing but an import; it should be studied on the soil that gave it birth, and among the various moral and material elements that nourished it. Furthermore, this architecture is so intimately tied to our national history, to the achievements of the French mind, as well as to our national character (whose major traits, tendencies, and directions are vividly reflected in this same architecture) that it is only barely understandable why all this is not better known and appreciated, or why the study of it is not required in our schools every bit as much as is the teaching of our national history. 208 GUSTAVE COURBET from “Statement on Realism” (1855) eynaud’s remarks on iron, published in the first volume of his Traité d’architecture (1850), actually precede the sudden popularity of this material in the 1850s. Paxton’s impressive design for the Great Exhibition of 1851 would have an enormous impact on the use of iron in both Europe and the United States. In France iron construction was similarly given a boost when Napoleon Ill ordered the work on the Halles Centrales halted in 1853, so that its architect Victor Baltard (1805~74) might redesign the city’s central market as a series of cast-iron structures. Paris also followed London by hosting its own international exhibition in 1855 — the Exposition universelle des produits de Vindusirie. Here the engineer Alexis Borrault designed the main exhibition hall as a tripartite nave of three barrel vaults (cast-iron trusses) with a span of 48 meters in the center. The Paris Exposition of 1855 is also notable in one other important respect. After the painter Gustave Courbet hod two of his paintings — The Painter's Studio and Burial at Ornians — rejected by the official exposition committee Gustave Courbet (1819-77), from “Statement on Reolism’” which appeared os a preface to Courbet's catclogue of 1855, “Reals — Gustove Courbet.”” ‘The English tronslotion is token from Gustave Courbet: 1819-1877. London, 1977, p. 77. COURBET, ‘STATEMENT ON REALISM’’ sisduration, in those works destined to transmit to future generations the glorious mementos of an epoch ~ monuments of popular belief, religion, race, or national significance. Between the realism of construction and the idealism of architecture there are opposing goals that lead to very different means of execution. What the builder most forcefully reveals in his work ~ a good aesthetic — leads the architect to modify it. Beauty in architecture (in literature it is Chateaubriand who says it), beauty consists in choosing and hiding: choosing what manifests the grace of contours, the harmony of proportions, the elegance of forms, the originality of dispositions and effects; and hiding, on the contrary, everything that smacks of pain and effort, that takes away from majesty by constraining it, everything that shows a struggle with the material, a resistance of force and its weight. When architecture assumes this character, it belongs to those rude and barbaric periods of civilization, in which the human struggle with nature had not yet ceased, as seen in the Egyptian period of antiquity and the Romanesque period in more recent times. At the most one is permitted to use the architectural forms of those periods in our buildings where utility overweighs beauty, where the economics of public or private funds compel the architect not to give into the impulses of the imagination, and to treat an element of the disposition of the construction itself as an object of decoration. 214 EUGENE-EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC from “‘Style’’ in Reasoned Dictionary (1866) iollet-e-Duc did not wait long to pick up the gaunilet in what became the final stage of this debate. He responds to the attacks of Daly and others with two philosophical essays in 1866. In one — his entry on “Style” in the eighth volume of his Dictionnaire raisonné — he now defines the term in very abstract terms simply as “the manifestation of an ideal based on a principle.” In his logical, almost mathematical precision, he has clearly moved beyond his earlier support of Gothic Revivalism and is attempting to define architecture in universal terms. Iron construction is not to be belittled; near the end of this essay, he announces that a new style must arise out of a new structural principle, “out of adherence to a law that is unimpeded by exceptions.” We will speak here of style only as it belongs to art understood as a conception of the human mind. Just as there is only Art in this sense, so there is only one Style. What, then, is style in this sense? It is, in a work of art, the manifestation of an ideal based on a principle. [...] ‘Thus, even while we recognize that a work of art may exist in an embryonic state in the imagination, we must also recognize that it will not develop into a true and viable work of Eugdne-fmmonvel VilleHe-Duc, from “Style,” in Dicionnaie raisonné (1866), trons. Kenneth D. Whitehead, in The Fourdatons of Architecture: ‘Salectons from the Didionnaire rcisonné. New York: George Braziler, 1990, pp. 231-2, 240-2. © 1990 by George Brazller, Inc. Reprinted with permission of George Brzilr, Inc. VIOLLET-LE-DUC, ‘'STYLE’’ IN REASONED DICTIONARY 525art without the intervention of reason. It is reason that will provide the embryonic work with the necessary organs to survive, with the proper relationships between its various parts, and also with what in architecture we call its proper proportions. Style is the visible sign of the unity and harmony of all the parts that make up the whole work of art. Style originates, therefore, in an intervention of reason. ‘The architecture of the Egyptians, like that of the Greeks, possessed style because both architectures were derived by means of an inflexible logical progression from the principle of stability on which both were based. One cannot say the same of all the constructions of the Romans during the Roman Empire. As for the architecture of the Middle Ages, it, too, possessed style once it had abandoned the debased traditions of antiquity ~ that is, in the period from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. It possessed style because it proceeded according to the same kind of logical order that we have observed at work in nature. Thus, just as in viewing a single leaf it is possible to reconstruct the entire plant, and in viewing an animal bone, the animal itself, it is also possible to deduce the members of an architecture fiom the view of an architectural profile. (See the entry “Trait.” Similarly, the nature of the finished construction can, be derived from an architectural member. 215 EUGENE-EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC from Lectures on Architecture, Lecture XII (1866) he second response of Viollet-le-Duc, probably written sometime later in 1866 or shortly thereafter, is the twelfth lecture of his Entretiens sur architecture. The lecture is astonishing if only for the designs of large iron-ond-mosonry structures that Viollet-le-Duc provides to the reader. This short excerpt does not do full justice to the nuances of his theory, but it represents his final resting point — his willingness to move beyond the historical past and embrace iron in the much-desired crection of a new style. Hitherto cast or rolled iron has been employed in large buildings only as an accessory. Where edifices have been erected in which metal plays the principal part, as in the Halles Contrales of Paris, — in these buildings masonry ceases to take any but an exceptional part, serving no other purpose than that of partition walls. What has nowhere been attempted with intelligence is the simultaneous employment of metal and masonry. Nevertheless it is this which in many cases architects should endeavour to accomplish. We cannot always erect either railway stations, markets, or other immense buildings entirely of masonry, such buildings being very heavy in appearance, very costly, and not presenting sufficiently ample interior accommodation, A structure in masonry, regarded as an envelope protecting from cold or heat, offers advantages which nothing could replace. The problem to be solved fugine-Emmanvel Violetle-Duc, from Ledure Xt, Enttins sur Vrchitedure (1866), trans. Benjamin Bucknall and published, crginaly in 186], os Lectures on Architecture, New York: Dover, 1987 (tani eon), pp. 58-9. 526 VIOLLET-LE-DUC, LECTURESaccording to a new system. Finally the gesture and the bearing of the woman of today give to her dress a life and a special character which are not those of the woman of the past. In short, for any ‘modernity’ to be worthy of one day taking its place as ‘antiquity’, it is necessary for the mysterious beauty which human life accidentally puts into it to be distilled from it. And it is to this task that Monsieur G, particularly addresses himself 210 EUGENE-EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC from Lectures on Architecture, Lecture VI (1859) n the late 1850s and 1860s Viollet-le-Duc’s theory began to evolve once again in light of the intense architectural debate taking place in France. In 1856 Henri Lobrouste closed his popular design studio, which he had opened in 1830 in defiance of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Fifteen students, led by Anatole de Boudot (1834-1915), approached Viollet-le-Duc ond osked him to open a studio. The later responded with a full architectural program of study, the cornerstone of which would be a series of lectures that he immediately set out fo compose. Even though the studio foiled and his students left him, Viollet-le-Duc continued with his task and completed his first series of ten lectures by 1863. Of these, the sixth lecture stands apart in its general tenor. Whereas the first five lectures are largely didactic and historical, Viollet-le-Duc in his sixth lecture speaks direcly to contemporary issues and with both o sense of urgency at contemporary prospects and a mature system of historical development. Greece and the Middle Ages are both periods of great accomplishment and style, but they now have little to offer the present except the logic and discipline of an overriding principle. The inspiration of the artists must be conjoined to them ond the functional steam locomotive now becomes a symbol of the new industrial age. 1 admit that in what appertains to Architectural Art we are far from rightly appreciating our ‘own times, — what they demand, and what they reject. We are just at the same point with regard to Architecture that the Western World at large was at the time of Galileo in regard to the sciences. The conservators of the fixed principles of beauty would, if they had the power, willingly confine, as a dangerous maniac, him who should attempt to prove that there exist principles independent of form; ~ that, while principles do not vary, their expression cannot be permanently riveted to one invariable form, For nearly four centuries we have been disputing about the relative value of ancient and modern Art, and during these four hundred years our disputes have turned not upon principles, but upon ambiguous terms and of speech. We architects, shut up in our art ~ an art which is half science, half sentiment, ~ present only hieroglyphics to the public, which does not understand us, and which leaves us to dispute in our isolation. Shall we never have our Moliére to treat us as he did the doctors of his time? May we not hope some day (while still admiring them) to part company with Hippocrates and Galen? [...] 5 Eugéne-Emmanvel Vol-e-Dus, from Lecture VI, Entretiens sur Varchtecture (1859), trans, Benjamin Bucknall, ond published in ire Lectures on Architecture. New York: Dover, 1987 (focsimile edition), pp. 172, 176~T, 1834. 518 VIOLLET-LE-DUC, LECTURES‘There are times when man needs some of the barbarian clement, just as the soil needs manure; for production requires a process of mental fermentation, resulting from contrasts, from dissimilarities, from a disparity between the real and the ideal world. The periods most fruitful in intellectual products have been periods of the greatest agitation (it must be understood that | include the arts among intellectual products — with no offence to those who produce “works of art” as a velvet weaver makes yards of velvet), — periods in which the student of history finds the greatest contrasts. If a society attains to an advanced degree of civilisation, in which everything is balanced, provided for, and adjusted, there ensues a general equality of well-being, — of the good and the proper, ~ which may render man materially happy, but which is not calculated to arouse his intellect. Movement, struggle, even opposition, is necessary to the arts; stagnation in the mental order, as in the physical, soon induces decay. Thus Roman society placed in the centre of the West, and absolute mistress of the known world, became enfeebled and corrupted, because discussions and contrasts were wanting. Morals and Art decline, simply because everything in this world which does not renew itself by movement and the infusion of foreign elements, becomes subject to decay. Ideas are like families: they must be crossed if we would not see their Vitality enfeebled. What themes shall the poet find amid a perfectly well-ordered, well-governed, well- behaved society, where all have the same number of ideas, and of the same kind, on every subject? Extremes and contrasts are necessary to the poet. When a man of strong feelings sees his country invaded; when he is the witness of shameful abuses; when his sense of right is outraged; when he suffers or hopes, — if this man is a poet, he is inevitably inspired; he will write and arouse emotions in others: but if he lives in the midst of a polished, tolerant, easy- going community, by whom extremes alone are regarded as want of taste — what will he find to say? He will perhaps describe the flowers, the brooks, the verdant meadows, or, stimu- lating his imagination to a fictitious warmth, he will plunge into the domain of the unreal, the unnatural, the impossible; or, on the other hand, he will give expression to an undefined longing, a groundless disgust of life, and sufferings for which no adequate cause can be alleged. No! — the true poet, sounding to its depths this social condition, apparently so calm and unvaried, will seck in human hearts feelings which never die, wherever man is to be found: beneath the uniform garb in which all the members of this community are dressed, he will find various passions, noble or base; he will compel us to recognise again those contrasts whose manifestations we seek to suppress: thus and thus only will he make himself heard and read. The more civilised and regular society becomes, the more is the artist compelled to analyse and dissect passions, manners, and tastes, - to revert to first principles to lay hold of and display them in naked simplicity before the world, — if he would leave a deep impression upon this externally uniform and colourless society. Hence it is more difficult to be an artist in times like our own, than among rude, unrefined, people, who openly display their good or evil passions. In primitive epochs, style imposed itself on the artist; now, the artist has to acquire style. But what is style? am not speaking now of style as applied to the classification of the arts by periods, but of style as inherent in the arts of all times; and to make myself better understood, I remark that independently of the style of the writer in each language, there is a style which belongs to all languages, because it belongs to humanity. This style is inspiration; but it is inspiration subjected to the laws of reason, — inspiration invested with a distinction VIOLLET-LE-DUC, LECTURES 5peculiar to every work produced by a genuine feeling rigorously analysed by reason before being expressed; it is the close accord of the imaginative and reasoning faculties; it is the effort of the active imagination regulated by reason. [...] We may say as much of the ideas, systems, and principles which regulate art. When ideas, systems, and principles are modified, the forms corresponding should be modified also. We admire a hundred-gun ship of war, rigged as a sailing vessel; we perceive that there is in this work of man ~ the principle being admitted — not only a wonderful product of intelligence, but also forms so perfectly adapted to their purpose, that they appear beautiful, and in fact are so; but however beautiful these forms may be, as soon as steam-power has supervened, they must be changed, for they are not applicable to the novel motive force; hence they are no longer good; and on the principle just now cited they will no longer be beautiful for us. Since in our days, when we are subjected to an imperative necessity, we subordinate our works to that necessity, we are so far capacitated for acquiring style in art, which is nothing more than the rigorous application of a principle. We erect public buildings which are devoid of style because we insist on allying forms derived from traditions with requirements which are not in harmony with those traditions. Naval engincers in building a steam-ship, and machinists in making a locomotive, do not endeavour to reproduce the forms of a sailing vessel of the time of Louis x1v, or of a stage-coach: they simply conform to the novel principlesvith which they have to deal, and thus produce works which have a character, @ style of their own, as indicating to every eye a definite purpose. The locomotive, for example, has a special physiognomy which all can appreciate, and which renders it a distinct creation, Nothing can better express force under control than these ponderous rolling machines; their motions are gentle or terrible; they advance with terrific impetuosity, or seem to pant impatiently under the restraining hand of the diminutive creature who starts or stops them at will. The locomotive is almost a living being, and its external form is the simple expression of its strength. A locomotive therefore has style. Some will call it an ugly machine. But why ugly? Does it not exhibit the true expression of the brute energy which it embodies? Is it not appreciable by all as a thing complete, organised, possessing a special character, as does a piece of artillery or a gun? There is no style but that which is appropriate to the object. A sailing-vessel has style; but a steamer made to conceal its motive power and looking like a sailing-vessel will have none; a gun has style, but a gun made to resemble a crossbow will have none. Now we architects have for a long time been making guns while endeavouring to give them as much as possible the appearance of crossbows, or at any rate that of arquebuses; and there are persons of intelligence who maintain that if we abandon the form of the arquebuse we are barbarians, ~ that Art is lost, ~ that nothing is left for us but to hide our heads in shame. 520 VIOLLET-LE-DUC, LECTURESart without the intervention of reason. It is reason that will provide the embryonic work with the necessary organs to survive, with the proper relationships between its various parts, and also with what in architecture we call its proper proportions. Style is the visible sign of the unity and harmony of all the parts that make up the whole work of art. Style originates, therefore, in an intervention of reason. ‘The architecture of the Egyptians, like that of the Greeks, possessed style because both architectures were derived by means of an inflexible logical progression from the principle of stability on which both were based. One cannot say the same of all the constructions of the Romans during the Roman Empire. As for the architecture of the Middle Ages, it, too, possessed style once it had abandoned the debased traditions of antiquity ~ that is, in the period from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. It possessed style because it proceeded according to the same kind of logical order that we have observed at work in nature. Thus, just as in viewing a single leaf it is possible to reconstruct the entire plant, and in viewing an animal bone, the animal itself, it is also possible to deduce the members of an architecture fiom the view of an architectural profile. (See the entry “Trait.” Similarly, the nature of the finished construction can, be derived from an architectural member. 215 EUGENE-EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC from Lectures on Architecture, Lecture XII (1866) he second response of Viollet-le-Duc, probably written sometime later in 1866 or shortly thereafter, is the twelfth lecture of his Entretiens sur architecture. The lecture is astonishing if only for the designs of large iron-ond-mosonry structures that Viollet-le-Duc provides to the reader. This short excerpt does not do full justice to the nuances of his theory, but it represents his final resting point — his willingness to move beyond the historical past and embrace iron in the much-desired crection of a new style. Hitherto cast or rolled iron has been employed in large buildings only as an accessory. Where edifices have been erected in which metal plays the principal part, as in the Halles Contrales of Paris, — in these buildings masonry ceases to take any but an exceptional part, serving no other purpose than that of partition walls. What has nowhere been attempted with intelligence is the simultaneous employment of metal and masonry. Nevertheless it is this which in many cases architects should endeavour to accomplish. We cannot always erect either railway stations, markets, or other immense buildings entirely of masonry, such buildings being very heavy in appearance, very costly, and not presenting sufficiently ample interior accommodation, A structure in masonry, regarded as an envelope protecting from cold or heat, offers advantages which nothing could replace. The problem to be solved fugine-Emmanvel Violetle-Duc, from Ledure Xt, Enttins sur Vrchitedure (1866), trans. Benjamin Bucknall and published, crginaly in 186], os Lectures on Architecture, New York: Dover, 1987 (tani eon), pp. 58-9. 526 VIOLLET-LE-DUC, LECTURESfor providing great edifices destined to accommodate large assemblages would therefore be this: ~ To obtain a shell entirely of masonry, walls and vaulting, while diminishing the quantity of material and avoiding obstructive supports by the use of iron; to improve on the system of equilibrium adopted by the medieval architects, by means of iron, but with due regard to the qualities of that material, and avoiding the too close connection of the masonry with the metal; as the latter becomes not only a cause of destruction to the stone, but perishes itself very quickly when not left free. Some few attempts have been made in this direction, but timidly, - for instance by merely substituting columns of cast iron for stone pillars. Iron, however, is destined to play a more important part in our buildings; it should certainly furnish very strong and slender supports, but it should also enable us to adopt vaulting at once novel in plan, light, strong and elastic, and bold constructions forbidden to the mason, such as overhanging projections, corbellings, oblique supports, etc, Is it not evident, for example, that while retaining the system of vaulting employed during the Middle Ages, the thrust of that vaulting might be resisted by the means represented in figure 3? ‘The use of rigid shafts or cast-iron columns as oblique supports, is a means of which our builders have not yet thought, I hardly know why, for this system is fruitful in deductions. It somewhat contravenes the principles of Greek and even Roman architecture; but if we would invent that architecture of our own times which is so loudly called for, we must certainly seek it no longer by mingling alll the styles of the past, but by relying on novel principles of structure. An architecture is created only by a rigorously inflexible compliance with modern requirements, while the knowledge already acquired is made use of, or at least not disregarded. 216 EMILE ZOLA from The Covered Market of Paris (1872) Ithough this short passage from a novel of the writer Emile Zola falls outside of our chronological time- frome, it is nevertheless a fitting postscript to four decades of continuous discussion. As we have already seen (chapter 137 above), Victor Hugo in the second edition of Notre-Dame de Poris added his chapter “Ceci fuera cela” ("This will kill that”), in which he spoke of the death of (medieval) architecture ot the hands of the printing press. The realist Zola reiterates this theme, only now itis the death of eorlier conceptions of architecture ‘through modern works erected in accordance with the realist sprit of the time. The Parisian church of Saint-Eustache — 0 quosi-Renaissance, late-Gothic church — was completed in 1532. Les Holles centrales were the famous iron structures that Victor Baltard erected between 1853 ond 1870 to serve as the central marketplace for the city. The scene of this passage is a dialogue between two protagonists, taking place on a carriage ride through Paris, In the following text the ellipses are original, {nil Zola (1840-1902), from Le vet de Paris The covered market of Pars} (1872), ons. Horry Froncs Malorve (wth elipses in rig). Prk: Le Lime de Poche, 1978, pp. 337-2. ZOLA, THE COVERED MARKET OF PARIS 527