Viollet-le-Duc, an inspired vision of restoration

“ Restoring a building does not mean maintaining, repairing or remaking it, it means restoring it to a complete state that may never have existed at any given time, according to Viollet-Le-Duc. ”

  • Publish On 1 August 2024
  • Bérénice Gaussuin
  • 29 minutes

Viollet-le-Duc is famous for restoring the spire of Notre-Dame, which had been knocked down in 1792. In the course of this construction project, he reinvented the statues of the portals and the Kings’ Gallery, which had been decimated during the Revolution, because, in his words: “Restoring an edifice does not mean maintaining, repairing or remaking it, it means re-establishing it in a complete state that may never have existed at a given moment.” Bérénice Gaussuin, PhD in architecture, whose book Viollet-le-Duc : La forge d’une théorie de la restauration par la pratique (Viollet-le-Duc: Forging a theory of restoration through practice) has just been published (CNRS Éditions), takes a look at the approach of this extraordinary restorer.

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Podcast transcription: Raphaëlle Guidée

Raphaëlle Guidée is a specialist in narrative representations of economic, environmental and societal collapse. For over 10 years, she has analyzed the narratives surrounding Detroit’s bankruptcy in order to understand how an apparent ruin of capitalism can inspire discourses of domination or resistance. In La ville d’après : Détroit, une enquête narrative [The Aftermath City: Detroit, a narrative investigation] (Flammarion), rather than focusing on fictions, she seeks out testimonies and concrete stories, believing that modern times don’t need new narratives. We simply need alternative narratives. Read the transcription of her podcast below.

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Podcast transcript: urban metabolism, at the heart of the matter

In urban planning and geography, the concept of metabolism is frequently discussed. This organicist metaphor likens a territory to a body, traversed by flows of materials and energy that link it to its environment. From a quantitative perspective, these flows can be measured over time and space to assess what a territory consumes, processes, and produces. However, a qualitative approach is equally crucial, examining the political and social trade-offs that shape urban metabolisms. With this in mind, we spoke with two researchers, Clément Dillenseger and Pierre Desvaux, who have explored the waste sector to analyze the socio-technical infrastructures that underpin metabolism and the imaginaries that shape its perception.

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“ Architecture has a unique relationship with the transformation of reality: it is, in a way, atlastic. ”

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“ Architecture has a unique relationship with the transformation of reality: it is, in a way, atlastic. ”


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Manuel Bello Marcano is an architect, lecturer at ENSA Saint-Etienne and sociologist of the imaginary at the Centre d’études pour l’actuel et le quotidien – CEAQ, Université Paris Descartes (Center for Current and Everyday Studies at Paris Descartes University). In his view, architecture is an act of aggregation designed to put the world in order: in this sense, he is interested in the political fictions mobilized to equip our thinking and, in this case, to build a “ togetherness ”. Follow his words and discover animality understood as community.

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“ A catastrophe is when a belief or certitude suddenly collapses. From its ruins, narrative, political, economic and ecological utopias can be reborn. ”

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“ A catastrophe is when a belief or certitude suddenly collapses. From its ruins, narrative, political, economic and ecological utopias can be reborn. ”


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Raphaëlle Guidée is a specialist in narrative representations of economic, environmental and societal collapse. For over 10 years, she has analyzed the narratives surrounding Detroit’s bankruptcy in order to understand how an apparent ruin of capitalism can inspire discourses of domination or resistance. In La ville d’après : Détroit, une enquête narrative [The Aftermath City: Detroit, a narrative investigation] (Flammarion), rather than focusing on fictions, she seeks out testimonies and concrete stories, believing that modern times don’t need new narratives. We simply need alternative narratives. Read the transcription of the podcast.

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Capturing the Cityscape Through Photography

Émilie d'Orgeix, Corinne Feïss-Jehel, Pierre-Jérôme Jehel

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Capturing the Cityscape Through Photography

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Björn Geldhof

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