In Flagrante: On Some Burning Questions for Restoration

Abstract:Like a phoenix from the flames, the nineteenth-century French restorer and architectural theorist Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s name was resurrected from the ashes of the fire that consumed Notre-Dame cathedral on the evening of April 15, 2019. But the invocation of Viollet-le-Duc’s legacy in the aftermath of the burning of Notre-Dame Cathedral was, more often than not, a firewall against engaging with the disturbing and still relevant core of his practice and theory of restoration. This essay tarries with this virtual and inexhaustible core through three scenes of conflagration that illuminate the fire and passion of his thinking for our time.