Among the protagonists of French monumental reforms and restorations in the 19th century, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) is rarely cited; he is often compared to London's John Ruskin (1819-1900), that is, English idealism versus French positivism, past versus future, conservation versus restoration (Montiel Álvarez, 2014, p. 155). However, in the post-revolutionary landscape and thus necessarily restorative, a series of isolated experiences will stand out without a unified criterion for restoration, as evidenced by the proposal of one of many architects trained at the Academy and sponsored in Rome: Jean-Antoine Alavoine's work in Rouen, whose reception we will proceed to analyze.
The iron spire of Rouen Cathedral stands out as one of the most controversial restorations linked to iron in history. Alavoine executed it after his interventions at Saint-Denis (tombs for Napoleon) and Sens, which along with the spire of Rouen prevented him from entering the Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the Commission on Historical Monuments. These were times when the resurrection of Gothic was condemned by the first institution mentioned, its imitation later forbidden, and its utility questioned in the present (Benévolo, 1987, pp. 61-84). Le-Duc, Lassus, and Ruskin would position themselves against these theses of an Academy that considered current classicism and which originated the dispute between neoclassicists and neo-Gothicists, essential polarities -along with Orientalism and other modernist trends- in subsequent revivals, where Gothic triumphed as romantic historicism par excellence (Valdearcos, 2007, p. 1).
Basically, after the fire in 1822 of the original wooden spire due to lightning (Kawase, 2015, paragraph 34), Jean-Antoine Alavoine erected over the crossing of Rouen Cathedral, protagonist of Monet's series, an iron-spun spire with Gothic morphology based on Salisbury and measuring 150 meters in height. Its execution dates back to 1823, being mounted from 1827 (Navascués, 1995, pp. 42-44). Alavoine's death shortly after his project was not the only reason for delay; Viollet-le-Duc, whose Parisian spire of 96 meters burned in 2019, halted the process in 1848, and to these criticisms must be added those of theorist and polemicist Quatremère de Quincy. It would be resumed a posteriori, inaugurated in 1875 after works considered already at that time eternal.
The title of this brief text refers only to the opinions of architects such as Adolphe Napoleon Didron, Le-Duc or the Commission on Historical Monuments, but above all those of the literati of the time: Victor Hugo and Gustave Flaubert. The former, in praising Chartres Cathedral in a letter to Adela, referred to «the deplorable bell tower of Rouen». (Hugo, 1903, p. 49). Victor Hugo had measured and studied the building, noting that «six months of study would be needed to have a somewhat complete idea of what it contains» (Ibid., p. 49), while Flaubert, native of Rouen, called his author mad in a dialogue from Madame Bovary that we quote in full in the version by Mauro Armiño, the famous translator of Proust:
—Hey, sir! The spire, the spire!
—"Thank you," said Léon.
—"You're wrong, sir. It's four hundred and forty feet high, nine less than the great pyramid of Egypt. It is all cast iron, it is…
Léon fled; he had the impression that his love, immobilized like the stones in the church for almost two hours, was now evaporating as smoke through this sort of truncated tube, oblong cage, perforated chimney, which ventures so grotesquely over the cathedral as the extravagant attempt of some mad ironmonger. (Flaubert, 2014 p. 188).
Not all was hate; it also received praise, such as that of Louis-Charles Eck, a contemporary architect who described it as admirable, as bold as magnificent, the work of an erudite like Alavoine (Eck, 1842, p. 26). Jean-Philippe Desportes affirms that the Gothic artist would have preferred iron, if he had access to today's technique, and Félix Tourneux and others stated that Gothic architecture was best suited for cast iron (Tourneux, 1841, p. 418). It will be Michel Chevalier, Louis-Auguste Boileau, and others, although always within the trend of limiting Gothic to the Flamboyant period, as Viollet-le-Duc rightly criticizes:
There are still many people who, when they hear "Gothic architecture," think of thousands of spires, stone lacework […] and all the exaggerated vegetation of the 15th century. […] There are still many serious and cultured people who only see Gothic in the “"great curled leaves”" of the 15th century. (Le-Duc, 1845, p. 304).
Slightly contemporaneous with the construction of the spire, Victor Hugo denounced the abuses of his time in War on Demolishers (1825), anticipating Le-Duc and his veto of innovation, or Ludovico Vitet (Inspector General of Historical Monuments since 1830) and the Guizot Law (1833), among other examples.
Nevertheless, today, on July 11, 2024, the iron mass of Rouen burned for a few hours during its restoration (eternal as said about its construction, since it expanded from 1974 to today and was resumed in 2015). Thus, today's press recalled the flames of Notre-Dame de Paris, as if Baudelaire's colleague fires (Little Prose Poems, 1862) or Ray Bradbury's burning books (Fahrenheit 451, 1953) were comparable to Homeric Troy. The mayor shared ipso facto on his social media how the gift was opened, since what was consumed was nothing more than a sort of protective plastic wrapping (or destructive?). It is possible that Alavoine has woken up in his eternal rest and that Victor Hugo and Flaubert celebrate the flames, reaffirming and execrating the memory of the French architect.
Bibliography
Benévolo, L. (1987): History of Modern Architecture. Editorial Gustavo Gili.
Eck, L. C. (1842): Treatise on the Application of Iron, Cast Iron and Sheet Metal… Through Sayuri Kawase.
Flaubert, G. (2014): Madame Bovary: Provincial Customs. (M. Armiño, Trans.). Siruela.
Hugo, V. (1903): The Complete Works. Travel Narratives. France and Belgium. (F. Casanova, Trans.). Editorial Seix.
Kawase, S. (2015): Les crêtes en fonte dans la première moitié du XIXe : le gothique retrouvé avant Viollet-le-Duc, Livraisons de l’histoire de l’architecture [Online]: http://journals.openedition.org/lha/468.
Leniaud J. P. (1993): Cathedrals in the 19th Century. Economica, p. 289.
Le-Duc, V. (1845): De l’art étranger et de l’art National. Annales archéologiques, t. II, p. 304.
Montiel Álvarez, T. (2014). John Ruskin vs Viollet le Duc. Conservation vs Restoration. ArtyHum. Digital Arts and Humanities Journal, 3, 151-160.
Navascués Palacio, P. (1995): Apraiz and the restoration of the spires of Burgos Cathedral. AARR: Quarterly Review of Architecture History, (1), 41-48. https://oa.upm.es/10691/1/apraiz.PDF
Tourneux, F. (1841): On the use of cast iron and wrought iron in construction. Revue générale de l’architecture et travaux publics. T. II, p. 418.
Valdearcos, E. (2007): Architecture and Urbanism in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Clío, 33, 1-16.
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