5 ms·

As we grow older we realize that nothing lasts forever but change. Gone is your childhood home, gone your school, gone the people who defined it. it's nice to h

by Haga 7y ago

As we grow older we realize that nothing lasts forever but change. Gone is your childhood home, gone your school, gone the people who defined it. it's nice to have something around that seemingly lasts forever like the earth and sky. Makes us feel home, when home is long lost too time.

village-idiot 7y ago
Presumably this iteration of Notre Dame was built by old men. Something must have changed at the societal level to make tearing down a 700 year old cathedral to make a new one possible in the 13th century, but seem unconscionable in the 21st.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  A vast development in building capabilities and craft I think is the answer. I don't think we have more crafting capabilities now when it comes to architecture, we can build bigger, higher, etc.. I don't think we can build with a greater sense of human devotion to ones craft and it's use to glorify God. Buildings now show incredible material science, technological development; but rarely the decades of learning of human craft directly applied to materials. I think if we were going from rough-hewn to well-faced stonework, opaque windows or simple slits to translucent radiant glasswork, from flat ceilings to intricate vaulting, etc.. that we too would make that leap. We are so much richer, we can afford to keep old stuff, hoard it even, and still have resources a'plenty to keep warm, feed everyone, and build glorious buildings.
aswanson 7y ago
Been having those thoughts revisiting my old elementary school with my kid. Every teacher and staff member when I went there is gone, but in my memory there is a snapshot of that part of my life...frozen in time. Comparing that snapshot in time & space to what it is now is jarring. Nothing is permanent but change.
naravara 7y ago
>Gone is your childhood home, gone your school, gone the people who defined it. it's nice to have something around that seemingly lasts forever like the earth and sky. Makes us feel home, when home is long lost to time. What makes monuments like Notre Dame or the pyramids special is that they DO imbue this sense of continuity. Everything else in our lives comes and goes, but a few things we as a society come together collectively to say "This is special and worth preserving." There is a special feeling of connection one gets from that sense of unity across time. These are the things that give us a sense of shared history and a shared future destiny. And it has the effect of simultaneously making you feel individually small and insignificant, but also important and part of something grand. The first time I visited Paris I remember one of my most dominant thoughts was that nothing like this will ever be built again. There is so much in the art and architecture that, by modern standards, would be deemed wasteful and extravagant and a suboptimal use of resources. We don't value aesthetics in the same way. So when these things go, they're gone forever. Even if remade they will only ever be an imitation of a way of thinking and a way of life that has gone extinct. They won't even serve to remind us of those old ways because the gestalt you get from layering generations of use and the peculiar artifacts of the material culture that created it will be gone. That's why people mourn. It's not just about the building, but the fact that the building anchors them to a sense of tradition and continuity. And it's not the first time these things happened. It was mentioned that before it was a Christian church it was a temple to Jupiter in that location. Removing the old pagan monuments was a conscious effort to FORCE just such a break from the past. To say the old pagan ways are over and to sever any sense of continuity with that old culture and their old Gods. I'm sure it was just as troubling or traumatic then too. We still have some collected myths and stories from the Romans and the Norse and so on, but a lot of these were written by Christian converts who were sad that the stories they heard on their grandparents' knees were going to disappear. They may have converted, but they felt like this was something important that needed to be preserved.
- lisper 7y ago
  You really need to go to Barcelona and see the Sagrada Familia. It will make you smile.
  - 7y ago

by Haga 7y ago

village-idiot 7y ago

Presumably this iteration of Notre Dame was built by old men. Something must have changed at the societal level to make tearing down a 700 year old cathedral to make a new one possible in the 13th century, but seem unconscionable in the 21st.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
A vast development in building capabilities and craft I think is the answer. I don't think we have more crafting capabilities now when it comes to architecture, we can build bigger, higher, etc.. I don't think we can build with a greater sense of human devotion to ones craft and it's use to glorify God. Buildings now show incredible material science, technological development; but rarely the decades of learning of human craft directly applied to materials. I think if we were going from rough-hewn to well-faced stonework, opaque windows or simple slits to translucent radiant glasswork, from flat ceilings to intricate vaulting, etc.. that we too would make that leap. We are so much richer, we can afford to keep old stuff, hoard it even, and still have resources a'plenty to keep warm, feed everyone, and build glorious buildings.

aswanson 7y ago

Been having those thoughts revisiting my old elementary school with my kid. Every teacher and staff member when I went there is gone, but in my memory there is a snapshot of that part of my life...frozen in time. Comparing that snapshot in time & space to what it is now is jarring. Nothing is permanent but change.

naravara 7y ago

>Gone is your childhood home, gone your school, gone the people who defined it. it's nice to have something around that seemingly lasts forever like the earth and sky. Makes us feel home, when home is long lost to time. What makes monuments like Notre Dame or the pyramids special is that they DO imbue this sense of continuity. Everything else in our lives comes and goes, but a few things we as a society come together collectively to say "This is special and worth preserving." There is a special feeling of connection one gets from that sense of unity across time. These are the things that give us a sense of shared history and a shared future destiny. And it has the effect of simultaneously making you feel individually small and insignificant, but also important and part of something grand. The first time I visited Paris I remember one of my most dominant thoughts was that nothing like this will ever be built again. There is so much in the art and architecture that, by modern standards, would be deemed wasteful and extravagant and a suboptimal use of resources. We don't value aesthetics in the same way. So when these things go, they're gone forever. Even if remade they will only ever be an imitation of a way of thinking and a way of life that has gone extinct. They won't even serve to remind us of those old ways because the gestalt you get from layering generations of use and the peculiar artifacts of the material culture that created it will be gone. That's why people mourn. It's not just about the building, but the fact that the building anchors them to a sense of tradition and continuity. And it's not the first time these things happened. It was mentioned that before it was a Christian church it was a temple to Jupiter in that location. Removing the old pagan monuments was a conscious effort to FORCE just such a break from the past. To say the old pagan ways are over and to sever any sense of continuity with that old culture and their old Gods. I'm sure it was just as troubling or traumatic then too. We still have some collected myths and stories from the Romans and the Norse and so on, but a lot of these were written by Christian converts who were sad that the stories they heard on their grandparents' knees were going to disappear. They may have converted, but they felt like this was something important that needed to be preserved.

lisper 7y ago
You really need to go to Barcelona and see the Sagrada Familia. It will make you smile.
- 7y ago