The Organic and the Eclectic in César Daly’s “De l’architecture de l’avenir”

Abstract

In The Organic and the Eclectic in César Daly’s “De l’architecture de l’avenir,” Gary Huafan He explores Daly’s concept of eclecticism as a critical discourse in the context of nineteenth-century ideas about naturalism and architectural style. In the 1869 essay that is the focus of this article, Daly narrated the “social evolution” of architecture as a process oscillating between organic and eclectic phases and mapped the history of style onto a parallel movement of French political regimes from antiquity to the Second Empire. Written after the fierce academic debates that took place in Paris in the 1860s and immediately prior to the tumultuous events of 1870–71, “De l’architecture de l’avenir” demonstrates the critical intersection between the romantic theory of architecture and nineteenth-century French politics. This key text in Daly’s oeuvre challenges contemporary understandings by demonstrating the vital role of eclecticism in the development of a modern architectural style.