Editing Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (section)

==Controversy==
Viollet-le-Duc was often accused by certain critics, in his own time and later, of pursuing the spirit of the Gothic style in some of his restorations instead of strict historical accuracy. Many art historians also consider that the British architectural writer [[John Ruskin]] and William Morris were ferocious opponents of Viollet le Duc's restorations. But Ruskin never criticised Viollet le Duc's restoration work in itself, but criticised the principle of restoration itself. Indeed, at the beginning of his career Ruskin had a very radical opinion on restoration: "a building should be looked after and if not it should be left to die". Viollet le Duc's position on the subject was more nuanced: "if a building has not been upkept it should be restored".

The existence of an opposition between Ruskin and Viollet le Duc on restoration is today questioned by new research<ref name = kennedy>{{Cite thesis |last=Kennedy |first=Travis |date=2018 |title=The great flaw in the man |url=https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8CV61JX |website=academiccommons.columbia.edu|doi=10.7916/D8CV61JX }}</ref> based on Ruskin's own writings: "there is no book on architecture which has everything correct apart from Viollet le Duc's Dictionary".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ruskin |first=John |title=letter to his pupil Percy Morley Holder |publisher=Royal Institute of British Architects |year=1887}}</ref> And at the end of his life Ruskin expressed the regret that "no one in England had done the work that Viollet le Duc had done in France".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ruskin |first=John |title=Praeterita (memories of youth) |publisher=George Allen éditions |year=1903 |location=London |language=english}}</ref>

Viollet-le-Duc's restorations sometimes involved non-historical additions, either to assure the stability of the building, or sometimes simply to maintain the harmony of the design. The [[flèche (architecture)|flèche]] or spire of Notre-Dame de Paris, which had been constructed in about 1250, was removed in 1786 after it was damaged by the wind.  Viollet-le-Duc designed and constructed a new spire, ornamented with statuary, which was taller than the original and modified to resist the weather, but in harmony with the rest of the design. In the 19th and 20th century, his flèche was a target for critics.

He was also criticized later for his modifications of the choir of Notre-Dame, which had been rebuilt in the [[Louis XIV style]] during the reign of that king.   Viollet-le-Duc took out the old choir, including the altar where Napoleon Bonaparte had been crowned Emperor and replaced them with a Gothic altar and decoration which he designed.   When he modified the choir, he also constructed new bays with small Gothic [[rose windows]] modelled on those in the church of [[Chars]], in the Oise Valley.<ref name="autogenerated260"/> Some historians condemned these restorations as non-historical invention. His defenders pointed out that Viollet-le-Duc did not make any decisions on the restoration of Notre-Dame by himself; all of his plans were approved by Prosper Mérimée, the Inspector of Historical Monuments, and by the Commission of historic monuments.{{Sfn|Poisson|2014|pages=218–222}}

He was criticized for the abundance of Gothic gargoyles, chimeras, fleurons, and pinnacles which he added to Notre-Dame Cathedral. These decorations had existed in the Middle Ages but had largely been removed during the reign of Louis XIV.  The last original gargoyles had been taken down in 1813. He modelled the new gargoyles and monsters on examples from other cathedrals of the period.<ref name="autogenerated260"/>

He was later criticized also for the stained glass windows he designed and had made for the chapels around the ground level of the cathedral, which feature intricate Gothic designs in [[grisaille]], which allow more light into the church.  The contemporary view of the controversy of his restoration is summarized on a descriptive panel near the altar of the cathedral: "The great restoration, carried to fruition by Viollet-le-Duc following the death of Lassus, supplied new radiance to the cathedral – whatever reservations one might have about the choices that were made. The work of the nineteenth century is now as much a part of the architectural history of Notre-Dame as that undertaken in previous centuries."<ref>Descriptive plaque near altar of Notre-Dame, recorded May 22, 2018</ref>

The restoration of ramparts of [[Carcassonne]] was also criticized in the 20th century. His critics pointed out that the pointed caps of the towers he constructed were more typical of northern France, not the region where Carcassonne was located, near the Spanish border. Similarly he added roofs of northern slate tiles rather than southern clay tiles, a choice that has been reversed in more recent restorations. His critics also claimed that Viollet-le-Duc sought a "condition of completeness" which never actually existed at any given time.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Social History of Knowledge II: From the Encyclopaedia to Wikipedia|last=Burke|first=Peter|publisher=Wiley|year=2013|isbn=978-0745650432|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/socialhistoryofk00pete}}</ref>
The principal counter-argument made by Viollet-le-Duc's defenders was that, without his prompt restorations, many of the buildings that he restored would have been lost, and that he did the best that he could with the knowledge that was then available.

Mortimer Wheeler's entry on English archaeologist Charles R Peers for the Dictionary of National Biography (1971) is worth quoting for its critique of Viollet-le-Duc:
“he [Peers] laid down the principles which have governed architectural conservation in the United Kingdom and have served as a model in other parts of the world. His cardinal principle was to retain but not to restore the surviving remains of an ancient structure; and in this respect he departed emphatically from the tradition of Viollet-le-Duc and his successors in France and Italy, where exuberant restoration frequently obscured the evidence upon which it was based ...”<ref>Quoted in {{harvnb|Chapman|2007|p=97}}</ref>