Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds

This installation presents a virtual reconstruction of the Grande Salle of La Vedette, the home of French architect EugèneEmmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879) in Lausanne, Switzerland. The reconstruction combines digital technologies with hand drawing and original archival materials to examine the relations between landscape, geology, architecture, and ethnography in the room’s historical interior and in relation to the architect’s life and work at the time.

With pen and pencil, Viollet le-Duc scanned the anatomy of cathedrals, mapped geological formations, and gave life to an imagined past. The exhibition will trace his career from early travel sketches in Italy and the Alps to the soaring restorations of Notre-Dame de Paris and Carcassonne, culminating in late works that blur the boundaries between architecture, nature, and imagination.