Style consists in distinction of form Writing about style in architecture, the nineteenth-century theorist Viollet-le-Duc asserted that "style consists in distinction of form," and complained that animals expressed this better than the human species. He felt that his contemporaries had "become strangers to those elemental and simple ideas of truth which lead architects to give style to their designs," and he found it "necessary to define the constituent elements of style, and, in doing so, to carefully avoid those equivocations, those high-sounding but senseless phrases, which have been repeated with all that profound respect which most people profess for that which they do not understand." Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, The Evolution of Useful Things Having quite lost sight of the principle style
The usages of life A Fragment by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc victorianweb.org During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries architects not only paid attention to internal arrangements, but subordinated the designs for the exterior to them. The usages of life dictated the arrangement and the arrangement suggested the form of the building. This was the dominant principle in times of Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Timeless Way of BuildingForm follows function architecturefunction
Discourses on Architecture A Book by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc Style consists in distinction of formHaving quite lost sight of the principle
Self-publishing, self-exemplifying I sought to design [my first book] so as to make it self-exemplifying – that is, the physical object itself would reflect the intellectual principles advanced in the book. Publishers seemed appalled at the prospect that an author might govern design. Consequently I decided to self-publish the book. ...[Howard Gralla and I] spent the summer in his studio laying out the book, page by page. We integrated graphics into the text, sometimes in the middle of sentences, eliminating the usual segregation of text and image – one of the ideas Visual Display advocated. My view on self-publishing was to go all out, to make the best and most elegant and wonderful book possible, without compromise. Otherwise, why do it? The next 4 books were financed by the previous books. I have never written a grant application. Edward Tufte, Seeing With Fresh Eyes To enact visually the message craft