Architecture Observations Heritage Paris

Viollet-le-Duc's definition of restoration and the rebuilding of Notre-Dame

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, faced with the difficult choice of which of Notre-Dame's historical iterations to follow in restoring it, wrote that in such circumstances it is best of all to try to imagine oneself in the place of…

Yet I suspect that he imagined not only the architects of the thirteenth century, transported through time: in Viollet-le-Duc's dictionary of French architecture there is a remark that "to restore a building is not to maintain it, repair it or rebuild it; it is to reinstate it in a condition of completeness which may never have existed at any given time."

I hope, however, that the new old Notre-Dame will be returned precisely to the state of completeness that Viollet-le-Duc proposed.

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

Viollet-le-Duc's definition of restoration and the rebuilding of Notre-Dame

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s