Question

Passage:
In mid-nineteenth-century Europe, two contrasting philosophies dominated the restoration of medieval architecture. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc advocated 'stylistic restoration,' arguing that restoring a building meant not merely repairing it, but reinstating it to a state of ideal completeness that might never actually have existed at any given time. To achieve this aesthetic unity, Viollet-le-Duc frequently replaced damaged original features with newly crafted elements designed in what he deemed the building’s purest historical style, sometimes removing authentic additions made during later centuries.

Conversely, British critic John Ruskin and his follower William Morris rejected stylistic restoration as a destructive falsification of history. Ruskin asserted that a building’s historical integrity resided precisely in the cumulative physical traces of time, including wear, decay, and subsequent alterations. Rather than attempting to recreate an idealized past, Ruskin argued for minimal intervention, advocating continuous physical maintenance to arrest decay while preserving all existing historic fabric intact.

Although Viollet-le-Duc’s approach gained initial popularity across continental Europe for creating visually cohesive monuments, it later faced harsh criticism for erasing genuine historical evidence. Critics noted that by stripping away post-medieval modifications, stylistic restorers created synthetic historical constructs that reflected nineteenth-century romanticized ideals rather than authentic medieval craftsmanship. Nevertheless, Viollet-le-Duc’s rigorous structural documentation of Gothic monuments provided foundational techniques that modern architectural conservationists still utilize today.

According to the passage, all of the following were characteristic of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s approach to architectural restoration EXCEPT: