ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Viollet-le-Duc's concept of the so-called "ideal cathedral", long held by historians as one of the hallmarks of the Dictionnaire raisonn de l'architecture. The gap between architecture and construction prevents the Dictionnaire raisonn de l'architecture from falling into a deterministic or causal paradigm. Viollet-le-Duc held that the architecture of the Middle Ages was "intimately tied to French history, to their national character whose principal traits, tendencies and direction it reproduces. By transposing the well-known schema to the Middle Ages, and by giving it a more scientific and organic aura, Viollet-le-Duc wished to ennoble France's artistic production with an intelligibility which in the past had been reserved for the highest achievement of ancient art. Following Viollet-le-Duc's historical dialectics, the Gothic cathedral is the most intense or evolved stage of the bodily translation, reflecting the sense of individual responsibility and freedom brought about by Christianity. This is why a physiology of architecture was conceivable.
