Viollet-Le-Duc, Eugene Emmanuel

Viollet-Le-Duc, Eugène Emmanuel 

Born Jan. 27, 1814, in Paris; died Sept. 17, 1879, in Lausanne, Switzerland. French architect, historian and theoretician of architecture.

Viollet-le-Duc restored a number of French Gothic cathedrals (including the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, beginning in 1845, with J. B. Lassus), the Carcassonne fortifications, the Chateau de Pierrefonds, and other structures. In his historical and theoretical works (Interpretative Dictionary of French Architecture, 10 vols., 1854-68; Conversations About Architecture, 2 vols., 1858-72, Russian translation, 1937-38; and Russian Art, 1877, Russian translation, 1879), he strove to reveal the general laws governing architecture (the conditionality of forms by construction), the uniqueness of its national schools, the nature of medieval art, and the constructive achievements of Gothic architecture, the study of which stimulated the development of framework structure.

REFERENCE

Gout, P. Viollet-le-Duc. Paris, 1914.