ABSTRACT
"Style" as a distinct aesthetic concept appears for the first time in the third volume of the Dictionnaire raisonn de l'architecture in reference to a forthcoming article in the eighth volume. The idea of style thus started to capture Viollet-le-Duc's attention at precisely the period when he was moving into field of racial theory. In defining it, Viollet-le-Duc made the distinction between "style" as an aesthetic term, and the "styles" as the designation of various periods in the history of art. Human creations endowed with style may or may not be tasteful, but they must always bear the stamp of the society and era in which they were produced. It is hence in his discussion of style that Viollet-le-Duc brings up for the first time works of modern engineering: steamboats, locomotives, and machines. The dynamic or kinetic character of the creative process that generates style is strikingly highlighted in Viollet-le-Duc's article on "Style" of the Dictionnaire raisonn de l'architecture.
