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Spire collapsed: https://twitter.com/patrickgaley/status/1117848909877895171 https://twitter.com/patrickgaley/status/1117848909877895171
by css 7y ago
Spire collapsed: https://twitter.com/patrickgaley/status/1117848909877895171 https://twitter.com/patrickgaley/status/1117848909877895171
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- airstrike 7y agoAll I can say is "fuck...." I'm truly heartbroken
- agumonkey 7y agoI'm shocked and that's rare in these days of chaos. The powerlessness hurts
- isostatic 7y agoMany of these wooden structures are nearly 1,000 years old. The spire itself only dates from the 19th century.
- smn1234 7y agois that accurate? https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-47942176 https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-47942176 suggests the spire dates back to 12th century whereas Wikipedia suggests, to your point, that it was recreated in the 19th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris#Towers_and_the_Spire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris#Towers_and...
- rodelrod 7y agoThe old spire was taken down after the Revolution because it was in bad state and in danger of falling over the structure. A new one was built in the big mid-19th restoration of Viollet-le-Duc. Source, the chief architect of the current restoration works in this very interesting video tour (in French): https://www.facebook.com/lemonde.fr/videos/10155299594692590/ https://www.facebook.com/lemonde.fr/videos/10155299594692590...
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoDoes wood really last that long? I know ancient Japanese wooden temples are basically rebuilt every 30 years or so, a constant renewal akin to the Ship of Theseus. Are European wooden structures similarly renewed?
- fhars 7y agoThere are still some 12th century wooden churches in Norway that still have most of the original wood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stave_church#Old_stave_churches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stave_church#Old_stave_churche...
- mveety 7y agoWood, if properly taken care of and kept dry, will last basically forever. I’d imagine they do that in Japan because of humidity or so.
- CydeWeys 7y agoThey do it in Japan because they choose to. Rebuilding it every generation is a religious ritual tied closely to Shintoism. The buildings certainly aren't rotting out completely over that short timeframe! Many Americans live in wooden houses that are much older than that. The biggest problem tends to be termites.
- bdamm 7y agoHere's a 1200-yr old wooden church: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensted_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensted_Church Protected from fungus (rot) and insects, wood can last indefinitely. How to achieve that, of course, varies widely.
- jbay808 7y agoOnly one temple in Japan is continuously rebuilt. Many others are several centuries old.
- Merrill 7y agoThe spire which collapsed was a reconstruction built during the restoration in the mid-19th Century. The Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, Restored by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Jean Baptiste Lassus -- http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/vld/3.html http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/vld/3.html "The Commission on Historical Monuments approved most of Viollet-le-Duc's plans, but rejected his proposal to remove the choir built under Louis XIV. Viollet-le-Duc himself turned down a proposal to add two new spires atop the towers, arguing that such a monument "would be remarkable but would not be Notre Dame de Paris". Instead, he proposed to rebuild the original medieval spire and bell tower over the transept, which had been removed in 1786 because it was unstable in the wind." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Viollet-le-Duc#Notre-Dame_de_Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Viollet-le-Duc#Not...