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What a beauty! Its been rebuilt (restored is a tricky concept here) in largely the same materials and in the same form as the original, prior to various restor
by gerdesj 2y ago
What a beauty! Its been rebuilt (restored is a tricky concept here) in largely the same materials and in the same form as the original, prior to various restoration efforts through the centuries, with a few knobs on.
This means that we get a mediaeval cathedral looking like it did when it was conceived and built (with an extra spire and a few other things). The colours are amazing.
Elderly churches, mosques and temples (int al) have a habit of losing their original colours and "feel" across the centuries. They change - age. Stone walls age and thanks to modern pollution darken. Pigments age, disperse and peel off.
Notre Dame has been restored. Not to how it was in 2018, prior the fire ... but to how it was intended when built, with a bit of sympathetic interpretation.
Well done!
- nntwozz 2y agoShip of Theseus comes to mind.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- highcountess 2y agoThat is not really applicable here. The cathedral itself was never really destroyed even though the Christian rejectors’ mob ransacked it in the “French” Revolution and the latest fire also did not really cause structural damage. It is also still a functioning Christian church with services.
- akerl_ 2y agoThe ship of Theseus was never really destroyed either. It was a functional ship with services.
- anon291 2y agoI mean it's a living church. The entire thing can be rebuilt and it will still be the real Notre Dame de Paris. It'd have to stop being used for the original function. Similar to how the California missions that are still parishes will continue to be complete. The ones that are museums will deteriorate. The beauty of a building is more than just its physical materials but also those things for which it was built and those people who built it
- akerl_ 2y ago> The entire thing can be rebuilt and it will still be the real Notre Dame de Paris This statement is kindof the whole point of the "ship of Theseus" thought experiment.
- Sebb767 2y agoA more favorable interpretation would be that the church consists of more than just its worldly parts; its place and use are also part of its identity. Even if you'd completely rebuild the church building, the other parts of its identity would persist. Therefore, the "ship of Theuses" argument doesn't apply, as, in this case, we would never replace all parts of [the identity of] this church.
- akerl_ 2y agoIt feels like you’re referring to the “ship of Theseus” as an argument that the identity does not persist… It’s not. It’s a hypothetical designed to call attention to the exact thing you’re saying: that potentially identity is more than the specific physical parts.
- anon291 2y agoI gave my differentiating factor.. Yes it's my take on the ship of Theseus problem. In that problem we re asked to consider if a ship with all it's parts replaced is the same as the original.. My argument is that so long as the ship is being used for the same purpose by the same people then it is. Without a purpose, wood in the shape of a ship is not even necessarily a ship Things are more than just their physical form.
- astrobe_ 2y agoOur own bodies are ships of Theseus. I've read once that every atom in our bodies are replaced in 40 years. In 40 years, our bodies change a lot and so are our minds. What make Theseus' ship the ship of Theseus, is that Theseus is the owner of the ship. Ownership is a social convention, a construction of the mind. What makes Notre Dame, is that people generally agree it is still Notre Dame. If hypothetically we were in a time of modernism craze, and that our government decided to rebuilt it in some modern style (there actually was proposals like that), it would still be the people who makes it Notre Dame de Paris or not.
- scientist4397 2y agoYou’ll have to wait a long time to think about it, lot of materials of the cathédrale are originals (especially the stones)
- bane 2y agoThe videos I've seen of the people who did this remarkable work show such a sense of pride, as they should have. It's an amazing testament that France was able to do this work, relatively quickly, in traditional ways. Maintaining that kind of expertise on the scale needed is astonishing.
- brabel 2y agoI was wondering exactly about that: how did they keep this expertise? Even in France, I don't think anyone is building medieval-style buildings anymore. Is the work done in restaurations enough to keep the know-how for actually building things almost from scracth?
- mahkeiro 2y agoIt may surprise you but people are still building medieval castle in France: https://www.guedelon.fr/en/ https://www.guedelon.fr/en/ (youtube has numerous video from them showing medieval technics of building) And France keep some of the building tradition through something called "compagnonnage" https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnonnage https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnonnage (sry but there no en page for this article).
- skywal_l 2y agoSomething close in en: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Devoir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Devoir
- realusername 2y agoThe answer is simple, there's an endless amount of churches and castles to maintain in France, so many of them that it's actually impossible to maintain them all. As long as the state cares about maintainance, there's going to be jobs for it.
- Neonlicht 2y agoI know that the bells were made in the Netherlands- which has a long history with church bells.
- kergonath 2y ago> with an extra spire and a few other things With a different spire. Notre Dame used to have a spire until it was removed early in the 19th century. > Notre Dame has been restored. Not to how it was in 2018, prior the fire ... but to how it was intended when built, with a bit of sympathetic interpretation. This is quite important. It was difficult to reconcile texts talking about how gothic cathedrals were full of light and colours with the aspect of a lot of these cathedrals, which felt dark and dull with their walls and windows blackened and covered in grime. The renovated interior is properly breathtaking. > Well done! Indeed.
- ghaff 2y agoI'll be interested to visit when I'm probably in Paris next spring. Notre Dame always seemed to me more impressive on the outside than the inside where, as you suggest, it felt pretty dark and dull compared to a church like Sainte-Chapelle.
- scientist4397 2y agoAnother one to see : Notre Dame de Strasbourg Darker, different stones but incredible too
- prewett 2y agoYou can see a contrast in pictures of the Chartres restoration. See [1], 5th picture down. The light areas are the restored, painted areas (if I remember correctly, they carefully scraped off the grime with scalpels to reveal the original paint, although I don't know if they did that for the whole surface or just used that information to scrape it off and repaint it). The dark areas are the unrestored areas. After 900 years of smoke from burning candles, and an oil furnace in the 20th century, the surface got pretty dark. The restoration was controversial because some people thought that we should either keep the "patina of age" or they thought that the patina was the natural color of the stone. [1] https://francetoday.com/culture/chartres-the-famous-cathedral-is-newly-restored/ https://francetoday.com/culture/chartres-the-famous-cathedra...
- pcl 2y agoHopefully a fire detection and suppression system was added along the way!
- eastbound 2y agoWell, it survived 700 years without, and it survived the 1960ies where everyone was smoking everywhere, and it survived two revolutions where the police wasn’t active. So a working fire detection system isn’t the problem. Yeah, I don’t buy the official investigation that concludes with spontaneous combustion.
- scientist4397 2y agoThere was already one but I guess an old system as it took quite some times to locate the fire
- usrnm 2y agoI'm actually still disappointed that they did not chose some bold and modern solution. France has no shortage of gothic cathedrals, many of which are much more interesting than Notre Dame of Paris, this was a once in a century chance to do something completely new and interesting, and they got cold feet. Such a shame. It's still very good work, but it will forever feel like a missed opportunity to me.
- cm2187 2y agoYou mean to replace the whole building with a beautiful brutalist structure made of dark concrete?
- usrnm 2y agoYou know that brutalism is long dead, don't you? At this point it's just a scapegoat, if you cannot see beaty in at least some parts of modern architecture, you clearly haven't been paying attention. Just look at some of the alternative designs for the restoration of Notre Dam and tell me that they're ugly and not interesting
- cm2187 2y ago> You know that brutalism is long dead, don't you? that's kind of the point with modern architecture. It's at best lame, often outright ugly from day one, and aways never age well. The only merit is that it is made of non-durable materials (concrete, glass and steel), so no one will look down on our civilisation in 800 years since there will be nothing left.
- rainworld 2y agoThey are hideous and repulsive.
- wqaatwt 2y agoYou mean things like: https://www.demilked.com/notre-dame-reconstruction-designs/ https://www.demilked.com/notre-dame-reconstruction-designs/ ? Because they are actually.. quite revolting. Even by modern standards, pretty disgusting. At that point you might just as well just bulldoze the whole building and put something new entirely there.
- throwaway48476 2y agoIt was rebuilt to how it was restored in the 1800s, not how it was built in medieval times. It's a mixture of Gothic and neo Gothic.