Editing Gothic Revival architecture (section)

==Viollet-le-Duc and Iron Gothic==
[[File:Carcassonne-vignes.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|right|View of [[Carcassonne]]]]
France had lagged slightly in entering the neo-Gothic scene, but produced a major figure in the revival in [[Eugène Viollet-le-Duc]]. As well as a powerful and influential theorist, Viollet-le-Duc was a leading architect whose genius lay in restoration.{{efn|In the Preface to his ''Dictionary of French Architecture from 11th to 16th Century'' (1854–1868) (''[[:s:fr:Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle|Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle]]''), le-Duc wrote of the ignorance of Gothic architecture prevalent at the start of the 19th century: "as for [buildings] which had been constructed between the end of the Roman empire and the fifteenth century, they were scarcely spoken of except to be cited as the products of ignorance or barbarousness".{{sfn|Charlesworth|2002c|p=611}}}} He believed in restoring buildings to a state of completion that they would not have known even when they were first built, theories he applied to his restorations of the walled city of [[Carcassonne]],{{sfn|Midant|2002|p=96}} and to [[Notre-Dame de Paris|Notre-Dame]] and [[Sainte Chapelle]] in Paris.{{sfn|Midant|2002|p=54}} In this respect he differed from his English counterpart Ruskin, as he often replaced the work of mediaeval stonemasons. His rational approach to Gothic stood in stark contrast to the revival's romanticist origins.{{sfn|Pevsner|1969|p=18}}{{sfn|Midant|2002|p=35}} Throughout his career he remained in a quandary as to whether iron and masonry should be combined in a building. Iron, in the form of iron anchors, had been used in the most ambitious buildings of medieval Gothic, especially but not only for tracery.

It had in fact been used in "Gothic" buildings since the earliest days of the revival. In some cases, cast iron enabled something like a perfection of medieval design. It was only with Ruskin and the archaeological Gothic's demand for historical truth that iron, whether it was visible or not, was deemed improper for a Gothic building. Ultimately, the utility of iron won out: "substituting a cast iron shaft for a granite, marble or stone column is not bad, but one must agree that it cannot be considered as an innovation, as the introduction of a new principle. Replacing a stone or wooden [[lintel]] by an iron [[Bressummer|breastsummer]] is very good".{{sfn|Midant|2002|p=154}} He strongly opposed illusion, however: reacting against the casing of a cast iron pillar in stone, he wrote; "il faut que la pierre paraisse bien être de la pierre; le fer, du fer; le bois, du bois" (stone must appear to be stone; iron, iron; wood, wood).{{sfn|Pevsner|1969|p=17}}

[[File:Gothic Bridge 28 east cloudy jeh.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Cast-iron Gothic tracery supports a bridge by [[Calvert Vaux]], in [[Central Park]], New York City]]

The arguments against modern construction materials began to collapse in the mid-19th century as great prefabricated structures such as the glass and iron [[The Crystal Palace|Crystal Palace]] and the glazed courtyard of the [[Oxford University Museum of Natural History]] were erected, which appeared to embody Gothic principles.{{efn|Ruskin was unimpressed by [[Joseph Paxton]]'s [[The Crystal Palace|Crystal Palace]], describing it as nothing but "a greenhouse larger than ever greenhouse was built before".{{sfn|Pevsner|1969|p=37}}}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~struct/resources/case_studies/case_studies_simplebeams/paxton_palace/paxton_palace.html |title=The Crystal Palace of Hyde Park |publisher=University of Oregon|access-date=4 April 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120312125040/http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~struct/resources/case_studies/case_studies_simplebeams/paxton_palace/paxton_palace.html |archive-date=12 March 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oumnh.ox.ac.uk/museums-architecture|title=The Museum's architecture|publisher=Oxford University Museum of Natural History|website=www.oumnh.ox.ac.uk|access-date=6 May 2020}}</ref> Between 1863 and 1872 Viollet-le-Duc published his ''Entretiens sur l'architecture'', a set of daring designs for buildings that combined iron and masonry.{{sfn|Pevsner|1969|p=34}} Though these projects were never realised, they influenced several generations of designers and architects, notably [[Antoni Gaudí]] in Spain and, in England, [[Benjamin Bucknall]], Viollet's foremost English follower and translator, whose masterpiece was [[Woodchester Mansion]].<ref>{{NHLE|num=1340703 |desc=The Mansion, Woodchester |access-date=11 May 2018}}</ref> The flexibility and strength of cast-iron freed neo-Gothic designers to create new structural Gothic forms impossible in stone, as in [[Calvert Vaux]]'s cast-iron Gothic bridge in [[Central Park]], New York dating from the 1860. Vaux enlisted openwork forms derived from Gothic blind-arcading and window tracery to express the spring and support of the arching bridge, in flexing forms that presage [[Art Nouveau]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.centralpark.com/locations/gothic-bridge/|title=Gothic Bridge (94th street)|publisher=Central Park|website=www.centralpark.com|access-date=6 May 2020}}</ref>