Architecture under the knife : Viollet-le-Duc's illustrations for the Dictionnaire Raisonné and the anatomical representation of architectural knowledge

The numerous illustrations--or better yet demonstrations--in Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionnaire Raisonne of Gothic architecture were the most powerful means of implementing biological metaphors in order to transfer or situate the discourse of architecture within the realm of nineteenth century positivistic science. Viollet-le-Duc borrowed dissective strategies of representation from the field of anatomy to implement his alternate 'vision' for appropriating architectural knowledge. By inscribing anatomical metaphors within his architectural drawings, Viollet-le-Duc could filter the viewer's conception of architecture through his own appropriation of anatomy's critical and selective methods of representation. This scientific approach to architectural drawing was in perfect harmony with Viollet-le-Duc's textual and conceptual mission in the Dictionnaire to not only demystify architectural knowledge as practiced at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but also to critically reconfigure the reader's relationship to it according to his own system. Through this process, it was his intent to change the public's way of thinking and seeing architecture