Bewitched by The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the Musée de Cluny, I went “medieval” and headed northeast of Paris to the edge of the Forest of Compiègne. The majestic towers of Pierrefonds Castle could be spotted from afar. From the cabby’s papotage, I learned that Michael Jackson had wanted to purchase the castle in the mid-90s.
“The purchase didn’t happen—for the better, I guess,” the driver concluded, and I agreed. The mastermind behind the castle’s massive restoration, which commenced nearly 170 years earlier, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, was known to be a romantic and eccentric visionary, but it was highly unlikely he would have been thrilled to see Sleeping Beauty or other Disney paraphernalia in his architectural tour de force.
Critics called Viollet-le-Duc a “disastrous restorationist” because he was guided by inspiration rather than historical accuracy. Accurate or not, the moment you begin your walk toward the castle—with its eight giant defensive towers and statues of the Preux Chevaliers watching over you—the place feels magical. No wonder Michael was so enamored with it that he ordered a model built for his home at Neverland.
While Disney was Michael’s inspiration, for Eugène it was the Middle Ages, Romanticism, nocturnal animals, and all sorts of fantastic beasts. In Pierrefonds, one sees them everywhere—from gigantic crocodile-like gargoyles with mouths wide open sliding down the walls to waterspouts perched along the rooftops. Viollet-le-Duc transformed Pierrefonds into a tale in stone, where fantasy, the Renaissance, and the medieval spirit waltz freely.
(It would be fair to mention that, outside architecture, the foundational theme of Romanticism—the grandeur of medieval chivalry—was highly exaggerated and almost as imaginary as Neverland, especially when it came to common folk and “infidels.” But that’s another story. The concept of the boy who doesn’t want to grow up is problematic as an ideal, too. But then again, what fairytale is without glitches?)
Pierrefonds has its own dark tales. The castle dates back to the 14th century. If Instagram had existed then, it would have been a permanent cover photo—a testament to the wealth and power of the House of Orléans. But in the 1600s, during the early reign of King Louis XIII, it became a symbol of feudal resistance to the centralization of power. Cardinal Richelieu (remember The Three Musketeers?), unlike the King of Pop, wasn’t satisfied with a mere model. He declared Pierrefonds a “clear and present” danger to royal authority and ordered its destruction. The castle was meant to be completely demolished, but it was simply too massive to yield.
It remained in ruins for centuries until its fortunes changed under Napoleon III, who in 1857 commissioned Viollet-le-Duc to revive its former glory. For Eugène, “former glory” wasn’t a strict blueprint to follow. He was the Alexandre Dumas of architectural restoration. Just as Dumas masterfully blended historical fact with fiction to create adventures more thrilling than reality, Eugène freely merged original structures with imagination. He “re-established” buildings to a state that, as he openly admitted, may never have existed at all. He approached other landmarks—Notre-Dame and Carcassonne among them—with the same creative liberty.
Eugène was versatile; his genius wasn’t confined to ruins. Had he not died in 1879, we might be thanking him—not Eiffel—for the structural design of the Statue of Liberty. Bartholdi, the sculptor, reached out to Viollet-le-Duc first—and not by accident. Eugène was known for his innovative metalwork and hands-on execution. He recommended hammering lightweight copper sheets onto a wooden framework using the repoussé technique. While Eiffel later redesigned the internal iron skeleton, Eugène’s ideas for the statue’s torch and arm remained.
Unfortunately, Viollet-le-Duc was also unable to complete Pierrefonds. Restoration halted several times due to funding shortages and the fall of the Second Empire in 1870. After his death, his son-in-law Maurice Ouradou, and later Juste Lisch, continued the work.
I walked past the equestrian statue of Louis d'Orléans and up the stairs guarded by four whimsical creatures—no two alike. Passing through rooms—some restrained in white stone, others adorned in vibrant color and medieval ornamentation—I wondered whether Viollet-le-Duc would have been satisfied with the final result.
By all accounts, he was strange—not only for his unorthodox restorations but for his obsession with them. He rejected official academic training and was largely self-taught. He was a perfectionist who cared less about preserving the past than about elevating it. His chimeras on Notre-Dame were inspired by Victor Hugo’s fiction rather than documented history, and the statue of Thomas the Apostle on its roof bears his own likeness. During his lifetime, he had many admirers—but also plenty of haters who labeled him a “vandal,” perhaps fueled by jealousy of the control he exercised over national monuments at such a young age. He was as unstoppable and uncompromising as the cats he adored.
But my lesson from Viollet-le-Duc had nothing to do with architecture.
Prior to my trip to France, I had a fallout with a longtime friend. I knew that restoring our relationship to its former state was impossible, and that realization saddened me tremendously. As I descended into the château’s crypt, where the plaster gisants of Saint-Denis are gathered, I suddenly understood: there is no bringing back the dead. The restoration of a relationship is more meaningful in Eugène’s terms—not as a return to a faded original, but as a re-creation into a form that never existed before, yet carries its own new charm and vitality.
His other lesson was simple:
STAY STRANGE.
🖤
— Vibe & Verse
From page to thread — a story you can wear
Stay Strange $28.99