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Viollet-Le-Duc: The French Gothic Revival
Large format, beautiful publication
176 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2002
5 people want to read
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April 29, 2016
The Radical Voice of Restoration-
Historic restoration often restrained to methods of preservation, which are to maintain, repair, or rebuild. Viollet-le-Duc argued restoration should not merely be preservation but more importantly, it should “reestablish it in a complete state that may never have existed at a particular moment". The reestablishment is achieved through new addition or modernization that seamlessly blends, or in most cases, accentuates the past. His radical approach made him target of passionate hate for ages. Arguably, it’s easier to preserve a historic building than to add and/or modernize it because the later will require much deeper understanding in tradition as well as most up-to-date technological innovations in order to manipulate people’s deeply rooted preconceived perceptions, which Viollet-le-Duc succeed in almost all of his restoration work, including Notre-Dame in Paris. His tectonic innovations especially in cast-iron made him the instigator of Art Nouveau and later Modern movements.
This tall slender volume printed on yellowish off-white papers elegantly displayed his finest work in mostly drawings, with complementary text and historic photographs. His drawings are exquisite with fine details, and the 174-page book is just packed with one drawing after another like no tomorrow. It’s like getting a rich satisfaction of a 3-course meal from a panini, which is far beyond my expectation.
I believe this book also offered a big knuckle sandwich to the face for those whose try to recreate history without mastery, honesty, and aesthetic sense. I'm still nursing my black eye from it.
Below are images I took of the book for my Amazon review, please see link below and let me know if they are helpful to you (by pressing yes or no button), thank you for your comment and support:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/review/RZNP9...
Historic restoration often restrained to methods of preservation, which are to maintain, repair, or rebuild. Viollet-le-Duc argued restoration should not merely be preservation but more importantly, it should “reestablish it in a complete state that may never have existed at a particular moment". The reestablishment is achieved through new addition or modernization that seamlessly blends, or in most cases, accentuates the past. His radical approach made him target of passionate hate for ages. Arguably, it’s easier to preserve a historic building than to add and/or modernize it because the later will require much deeper understanding in tradition as well as most up-to-date technological innovations in order to manipulate people’s deeply rooted preconceived perceptions, which Viollet-le-Duc succeed in almost all of his restoration work, including Notre-Dame in Paris. His tectonic innovations especially in cast-iron made him the instigator of Art Nouveau and later Modern movements.
This tall slender volume printed on yellowish off-white papers elegantly displayed his finest work in mostly drawings, with complementary text and historic photographs. His drawings are exquisite with fine details, and the 174-page book is just packed with one drawing after another like no tomorrow. It’s like getting a rich satisfaction of a 3-course meal from a panini, which is far beyond my expectation.
I believe this book also offered a big knuckle sandwich to the face for those whose try to recreate history without mastery, honesty, and aesthetic sense. I'm still nursing my black eye from it.
Below are images I took of the book for my Amazon review, please see link below and let me know if they are helpful to you (by pressing yes or no button), thank you for your comment and support:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/review/RZNP9...
Displaying 1 of 1 review