Reconstructing the Dent du Requin

Selected images

Model of Viollet-le-Duc's Dent du Requin.
Axonometric projection of the three-dimensional reconstruction of Viollet-le-Duc's drawing of the Dent du Requin.
Rendering the topographic incongruence in Viollet-le-Duc’s Dent du Requin.
Constructing a mountain, work in progress.
E.-E. Viollet-le-Duc, Crystalline system of the remnant peaks separating the glacier towards Blaitière from the Vallée Blanche. © Ministère de la Culture (France), Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine, diffusion RMN-GP.
Model of Viollet-le-Duc's Dent du Requin and idealised rhombohedron.

About

Viollet-le-Duc’s orthographic drawing of the Dent du Requin demonstrates the geometric order that he found underlying geology. However, the limits of this geometric rationalisation become evident in the incongruous relationship between the peak and the rhombohedral prism in his drawing of the Dent du Requin.

As drawn, the Dent du Requin appears perfectly circumscribed by the form of the rhombohedron, when in fact, this apparent coherence is only possible by means of visual trickery in a convincingly drawn projection. The misalignment between the peaks and idealised prism becomes clear through the process of reconstructing the architect’s drawing as both drawing and model.