Blog one: Viollet le Duc, Ruskin, and Semper

Compare and contrast the methods developed and employed by Viollet le Duc, Ruskin, and Semper in their search to establish a new architecture for the 19th c. Your answer should highlight the outcomes or principle theories that resulted. ( Tip: Encyclopedia, Seven Lamps or Virtues, and Mathematical formulation of style).

Viollet le Duc is known for restoring many famous gothic structures. However he also completed a few written pieces, one being Dictionnaire, where he proves how rationally gothic cathedrals were constructed. He believed it was essential to study architecture of the past in order to develop your own style as an artist. He says that when an artist looks at a building they find beautiful they should question what makes it so wonderful and apply those principles in their own creations; therefore, making a rational decision about what defines a "good" building. He appreciated Gothic architecture for its rationality and logical construction. However, this ideal extends confusion between rationalism and materialism. He believed that "there is no necessary connection between the quality of an art and the quality of the type of society which produced it" (Summerson 1963, p. 154). When restoring a building, he felt that it was acceptable to add in details that would not have been present in the original, because he believed he understood the gothic period enough to develop things in that style. 

 Ruskin was more of a writer and a speaker, not a doer like Viollet le Duc. He was also a Christian, where Viollet le Duc was an antagonist. Ruskin wrote the Seven Lamps of Architecture, which are the lamp of sacrifice, truth, power, beauty, life, obedience, and memory. With his lamp of truth, he argued against restoration, believing that ancient buildings should be preserved, but no attempt should be made to erase the accumulated history encoded in their decay. He hated the machine, believing that it was untruthful. Ruskin was also intrigued with gothic architecture; however, he "admires the Gothic building as alive with the life which the carver gives it..." (Pevsner 1969, p. 18). He believed that the quality of the architecture was representative of the qualities of the man. He views gothic architecture more emotionally and focuses on the craftsmanship of the buildings, while Viollet le Duc focuses on the designer. So while Ruskin advocated the preservation of old buildings, Viollet le Duc Introduced the use of new materials. 

Semper's study attempted to search for the inner law of artistic forms and to dissect the organic life of their becoming. He worked to deduce the fundamentals of an empirical theory of art and define art in an industrializing society. He used a system of comparative styles, which includes the four elements of architecture: the hearth (a basic social point for families; a central element), the substructure or platform (used to rise hearth from the ground), a roof (to protect the fire against rain), and the enclosure (to keep out wind and cold). Semper developed a mathematical formula for style: U= C(x,y,z,t...) where U is the work of art or style,  C is the function that provides what variables can affect the work of art. He wanted to use this formula to connect the formal properties of art and the cultural influences of the time. Therefore, finding a way to integrate modern industrialization with history. 


Pevsner, N. (1969). Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc: Englishness and Frenchness in the appreciation of Gothic architecture.. London: Thames & Hudson.

Summerson, J. (1963). Viollet le Duc and the Rational Point of View. Heavenly mansions, and other essays on architecture. (pp. 140-159). New York: W.W. Norton.