Eugene Purple-the-Duke

Eugene Emmanuel Purple-the-Duke (Paris, January 27th 1814 - Lausanne (Swiss), September 17th 1879) is a Architecte French, known especially for its restorations of medieval constructions .

Biography

He was the son of a high-civil servant and his/her friends of adolescence were the writer Charles Augustin Holy-Beuve and Prosper Mérimée.

At the beginning of the Years 1830, a movement of restoration of the medieval inheritance appeared in France. Prosper Mérimée required of Purple-the-Duke, architect (he had been sulky the Art schools) of return of a study trip in Italy, to restore the Abbaye of Vézelay in 1840. This work marked the beginning of long series of restorations, of which most known are - the Mont Saint Michel, Carcassonne, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, Châteaux of Roquetaillade and Pierrefonds.

Work

Some of its restorations:

Some-a of its achievements:

During all its career, it will take notes and sketches, not only of constructions on which it worked, but also of Romance constructions , Gothic and Renaissance which was to be demolished soon. Its study of the medieval period and the Renaissance was not limited to the Architecture: it was also interested in furniture, clothing, the musical instruments, the armament…

He is also historian and especially theorist of architecture. For this reason, it will try to be essential on the pulpit history architecture of the 3Ecole Nationale Sup3erieure of the fine arts of Paris (vain experiment, because of a cabal carried out by Julien Guadet - which will take its place - and by Jean-Louis Pascal). It will be then, in reaction against the teaching of the street Bonaparte, at the origin of the creation of the special École of architecture, Raspail boulevard. Its ideas inspired many its contemporaries, of the creators of the art nouveau to the turning of the 20th century and found even a new rise through recent achievements.

Man with the noticed friendships, his name was associated with excesses Romantisme, - Faire of the Purple-the-Duke - had, until the end of the 20th century, the pejorative connotations that the conferences and exposures presented at the time of the centenary of its death in 1879 contributed to attenuate.

Doctrines

Its point of view on the restoration is remarkable and is opposed to the simple conservation:

1=Restaurer a building, it is not to maintain it, repair it or to remake it, it is to restore it in a complete state which can never not have existed at a given time|2=Eugene Purple-the-Duke|3=Dictionnaire reasoned of the French architecture of the XIe to the XVIe century - Volume 8, “Restoration”

Pursuant to these principles, Purple-the-Duke modified several monuments irremediably, which explains why its work is discussed, but this often made it possible to save them.

The Basilique Saint-Sernin in Toulouse “die-was restored” in 1975-76, i.e. one returned in a state preceding the restorations by Purple-the-Duke.

Publications

Purple-the-duke was also the author of many works on architecture:

  • Dictionary reasoned of the French architecture of the {{S mini|XI|E}} with the {{S|XVI|E}} (1854 to 1868);

  • Dictionary reasoned of the French furniture of the Carolingian time with the Rebirth (Bance and Morel, Paris, 1858 to 1870);
  • Talks on architecture (in 2 volumes) (1858-1872).
  • Description of the castle of Coucy (1875)
  • Description of the castle of Pierrefonds (1857)
  • the City of Carcassonne (1888)
  • History of a house (Hetzel, Paris, 1873)
  • History of a fortress (Hetzel, Paris, 1874)
  • History of the human dwelling (Hetzel, Paris, 1875)
  • How one becomes a draftsman (J. Hetzel and Co. Paris, about 1878)

Some pupils of Eugene Purple-the-Duke

Sources

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