If Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc were alive today

Sunday during halftime of the Eagles-Cardinals NFC Championship football game, I randomly began flipping through a coffee table book gathering dust on the bookshelf: Architectural Theory From the Renaissance to the Present. It was either that or Danielle Steele (not really), but the coinflip favored the architectural theory book. 

Inside, I came across a text by Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, a French writer and educator who lived from 1814-1879. Oddly enough, some of le Duc's theories made me think about today's burgeoning age of sustainability.

Viollet-le-Duc predates modern architecture, but his writings, particularly his Detailed Encyclopaedia of French Architecture from the 11th to the 16th Century, had "an almost unparalleled impact on the conceptual tools of modern 20th century architecture," the authors write. Also a restorer of many Parisian landmarks, Viollet-le-Duc was forced out of his professorship at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the leading architecture school of its day in Europe, "as a result of his extensive but futile attempts to reform the training of architects."

Much of his crusade was to wrestle the principles and leadership in architecture away from the clergy and into the hands of secular society. But Viollet-le-Duc also laid out a formula for learning and practicing architecture that acted as a template for Modernist theory that would be very influential in the century-plus to follow: function over ornamentation, engineering versus architecture as art.

Looking back on his Detailed Encyclopaedia from an early 21st century perspective, the very Modernism that might have acted as an antidote to overly ornamented classical design became bogged down by accompanying social theory and rejection of the past. Modernism also became a visual style with its own brand of minimalist ornamentation, rather than an absence of petty style.

Sustainability reminds me of the rise of Modernism in its basic premise that buildings must be efficient machines for harnessing natural resources and eliminating wasteful energy or materials. The invention of air conditioning and the ability to seal off buildings in the 20th century, combined with relatively cheap energy, took building and design away from basic principles of site, materials and climate logically dictating the way in which to build. In other words, architecture by its very nature has always undergone a tug of war between science and art. Obviously in the end you can't have one without the other. But with the mandates of global warming, depleting fossil fuels and other environmental issues, we need logic and science to solve today's problems. Still, will sustainable architecture of the 21st century someday be considered a style as well? If Viollet-le-Duc were alive today, he'd be pounding on the inside of his coffin. But what might he say about green architecture once we let him out?

Are we in an era today where where reference manuals on practicing architecture need to be re-written? People use platitudes about the profession changing or this being a transformative time, but that can probably seem true in any time as one is living it. Even so, particularly given the spirit of change and renewal accompanied by a change in US president the day after tomorrow, I'd be curious to know if if the times really are, in fact, changin'.

Comments

[ka]

Interesting subject and an entertaining way to stimulate the abstract quality of architecture that theory always brings up. I was caught by your statement, "Still, will sustainable architecture of the 21st century someday be considered a style as well?" In light of Science and Art that you mention - i think sutainability falls into both realms rather than style or fashion that do date things. When you find the correct sustainable solution, you are searching for the simplicity - at times the most difficult attribute to find in great design. Sustainability in that regard is art, but the science of sustainability is to be transparent. Air conditioning certainly has some science to it, but really nothing about art. Take the same problem and solve it with sustainability and you have passive ventilation, absorption chillers, night flush, and maybe controlled by a building management system (BMS) - all automated, tied to the environment and connected to the site. Sustainability will not manifest itself into a style, except in the few trite examples, but rather it will manifest itself into technology, the simplicity of the science that is so hard to find in great design solutions. In the end it will be integrated into the design and will give form to the buildings. Yet another cliche of form follows function, but rather function gives form.

[andres]

Thats keen to think of sustainability as a style. It seems to also represent our health-conscious society. Its the right time and place for sustainability; meaning, there are a lot of existing buildings that instead of being demolished, are renovated and simplified to exposed beams, open floor plans, and natural light; all of which are proven to be healthy, energy efficient, and as a result, stylish.