The talk tracks the cluster of ideas defining a ‘mountain ecology’ in the work of French Neo-Gothic architect and amateur geologist Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879). It will demonstrate how it derives from a broader conception of nature as a ‘laboring’ agent, which, by an infinite accumulation of small means, keeps the world in a dynamic equilibrium in the course of its evolutionary path—a slow process always at risk of being disrupted by human action. The presentation will conclude by showing how such ‘puissances directrices de la nature’ finds expression in Viollet-le-Duc’s architecture thought and practice, and what constitutes its political consequences.
About Professor Martin Bressani
Martin Bressani is William Macdonald Professor in architecture at McGill University. He is the author of a monograph on Viollet-le-Duc, Architecture and the Historical Imagination: Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (Ashgate, 2014), and co-editor of Gothic Revival Worldwide. A.W.N. Pugin’s Global Influence (Leuven University Press, 2017), The Companions to the History of Architecture – Nineteenth-Century Architecture (Wiley Blackwell, 2017), and Narrating the Globe: The Emergence of World Histories of Architecture (MIT Press, 2024).
Lecture Series
Each year the History of Architecture and Built Environment (HABE) research group in ESALA welcomes guest speakers and colleagues to present an evening seminar on their research. The events are a fantastic opportunity to hear about the latest research in the field from researchers working in the UK, Europe and beyond. These events are free to attend, and attract an international online audience as well as being a way for all those in the University with an interest in the history of the built environment to come together as a community.
University students (of all levels) and staff are encouraged to attend on campus, with the seminars usually taking place in the Elliot Room at Minto House, 20 Chambers Street.
