Well, for what it’s worth, I like it. Old buildings aren’t always that old - they are added to over the centuries, with parts reflecting the tastes of their individual times. Why not add something reflective of our times?<p>I sometimes think there is an “English” approach to conservation in which history is something to be preserved with utmost fidelity - and a “French” approach, where history is something you are part of.<p>This idea seems very French.
I always find architectural designs like this very odd, since they seem divorced from anything like customer requirements. It's something like a programmer discussing what Twitter would be like if everyone followed exactly one of seven accounts.
My first thought was no no no no no.<p>But I'm warming up to it. ultimately, if 70 years from now they decide to restore it to its original form, that's always an option. But the original roof is gone, whatever is put there now is modern. I'd rather it be clear what is old and what is new, than trying to pretend the new is old. At least if it can be done well, and if the pictures are accurate, that seems to be the case.
How about whatever they do, wait 100 years before starting construction just to make sure the fashion of 2019 really is as timeless as it will need to be for the next 1000 years. There's no hurry. It took hundreds of years to build the original.
Judging by this thread, I might be the only one who likes this design so far.<p>It's pretty neat in my opinion to try to have a bit of our century represented in the notre dame for future generations.<p>I'm curious which one they will end up going for in the end.
I'm as conservative and traditional as they come... but it's got my vote.
Looks cool.
Who knows... maybe in 500 years there will another 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' kind of book but instead of the Quasimodo character having been driven mad by his job as the bell-ringer, it will be some character driven mad by his job as the bird-shit cleaner. Every time he sees a pigeon, he'd howl, "The birds! The birds!"
There is no more humility. Nothing is holy anymore.<p>Why can we rebuild it the way it was (as much as possible) and make the fire (and therefore ourselves) an asterisk in the Cathedral’s history? Why must we etch ourselves into everything?<p>Want a glass cathedral? Go build one. Elsewhere.
The trees are an interesting touch, but this seems like it misses out on the greatest active benefit of having a glass roof for a church: having natural sunlight fill the pews when services are held on nice days.
Drop the steel and use timber frame arches. Glass optional. Maybe partially stained with topics of great thinkers, artists, scientists of the last 500 years. Those rising us higher.
There is definitely something very odd about French culture at the moment, as this has become a left vs. right political issue. As it was burning, I caught a reporter say that they'd overheard people in a case saying "good, let it burn," that "isn't France anymore." I thought this was odd, but has since proven to be emblematic of the prevailing opinion.<p>“We mustn’t say to ourselves, by dogmatism, that we must absolutely redo the cathedral as it was. We won’t decide to do something modern or something new just for the sake of it."<p>- French culture minister Franck Riester<p>Macron himself has decided to hold an architecture competition to redesign something "even more beautiful," which belongs to all of France/the world. Attempting to preserve the cathedral is now actually an explicitly conservative position.<p>“Before proclaiming ourselves builders, let us recognize first that we are inheritors. Notre-Dame de Paris does not belong to us. We are the first to see it burn: Our only duty is to restore her."<p>- Right-wing candidate for the Republican Party François-Xavier Bellamy<p>Now, I'm by no means a traditionalist or conservative, but there is something very off-putting about the attitude of those attempting to reimagine the structure. I think the thing that bothers me the most is that it's just another skin-deep tribalist gesture of identity, that we must visually reimagine a Catholic icon, because it's important that it belong to "everyone, everywhere." But that's precisely the problem, because it already DID. Notre Dame has been a <i>global</i> icon for hundreds and hundreds of years. I'm neither French nor Catholic, and have always been in complete awe of that structure. Who is looking for Angkor Wat to be reimagined in a modern style for the sake of global identity? Nobody, because Angkor Wat <i>is</i> a part of our global identity exactly as it is.<p>I had a friend share something on Facebook that absolutely blew my mind. It effectively stated that "if you think the Notre Dame burning is bad, you have no idea what Muslims have gone through by seeing ISIS destroying Assyrian artifacts." I thought that this was an absolutely insane position to take. Those Assyrian artifacts were priceless to all of humanity. I am exactly as devastated at the loss of Assyrian artifacts as I am with the burning of the Notre Dame, even more-so because it was done intentionally, but I can't help but feel that the people who are ostensibly attempting to take a globalist perspective are revealing to the rest of us that they have been internally nationalizing cultural achievements this whole time.