4 ms·

I had the privilege of seeing the old Notre Dame right before it burned. It was very cool, but the new one looks like an obsessional desire to remain true to th

I had the privilege of seeing the old Notre Dame right before it burned. It was very cool, but the new one looks like an obsessional desire to remain true to the old form. At one point there was talk of Gehry redesigning it: that would've been interesting! Because when the Notre Dame was rebuilt last, it reflected the architectural limits of its time, the height of the medieval ability and imagination. It is strange to simply replicate that today, when we could do so much more, when the Sagrada Familia, for instance, represents with more force the modern condition.

aubanel 2y ago
Why would you want Notre Dame to represent modern condition ? I'm very happy it was not the way you suggest, because that would have been a high risk of getting a ugly/huge/provocative addition by a modern fame-craving architect, à la Le Corbusier or Jean Nouvel. This is a 1000 years old church that has hosted France's history, not a company office in Manhattan.
- kmlx 2y ago
  an argument could be made that this was a once in a few generations chance to do something different, or at least change/add to the existing design. another argument is that the building saw many changes from ~1180 to today, so change was actually part of the history of the building.
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    > to do something different Entirely just to do something different? Or for any actual reason? I mean things like: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/france-notre-dame-green-scli-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/france-notre-dame-gree... are just outright plain ugly due to many reasons and this is one of the nicer looking alternative proposals that I could find.
    - DiscourseFan 2y ago
      If there's one reason the French can't compete in the modern economy its because they are so painfully conservative in their culture. Elon Musk might be a cook with reactionary tendencies but he is a far more imaginary cook than anything the French can come up with. Did it really all end in 1848?
      - wqaatwt 2y ago
        What ended in 1848? I don’t really get the relationship between these two unrelated things, you’re free to use whatever architectural style you want when building new houses and office buildings in France as far as I can tell. By that standard other Europeans are even more conservative.. Germans rebuilt the Dresden Cathedral and palaces despite them being a complete ruin for decades. The Polish rebuilt Warsaw, Gdansk and I assume other cities almost entirely from scratch pretty much as replicas of their pre-war state. What does that say about them?
    - kmlx 2y ago
      they cancelled the design competition and went with an identical reconstruction: https://www.thelocal.fr/20200710/macron-gives-blessing-to-recreate-notre-dames-gothic-spire https://www.thelocal.fr/20200710/macron-gives-blessing-to-re... part of the reason was to have it ready for the olympics since a design competition would take a long time.
- whazor 2y ago
  The original creators would have intended the cathedral to be grandest as possible.
  - zelphirkalt 2y ago
    That would have cost probably even more than restoring it. It might have been extremely criticized by the public, as a funding grave, a bottomless pit swallowing a lot of funding for foreseeable future. The grandest these days is ... very grand. So grand, that there is no other building worldwide achieving it yet. We have learned a lot and would be capable of a lot, if there was a need to.
    - DiscourseFan 2y ago
      >there is no other building worldwide achieving it yet The Sagrada Familia, which is nearly complete.
- DiscourseFan 2y ago
  There are many catacombs in Paris. Nobody knows how deep the system goes. They were there before Haussmann, before the Normans, before the Goths, before the Romans, perhaps even before the Gauls. Your idea of what is French, however, is not what is buried underneath in the collective unconsciousness of the city, what supports it, but instead the reproduction of what people want to believe represents the city. But the Notre Dame no longer exists, it was a symbol of the power of a Medieval state. Paris today is a city of malls, broad avenues and apartments. We kid ourselves to believe that putting it back will "continue" its history: the history is buried under the immediately visible surface, its waiting for you to get lost in it. If we could build something that might unearth that history, perhaps it might be possible to begin to remake the city of Paris once again.
  - profsummergig 2y ago
    I read somewhere that the catacombs were the result of needing cemetery land for building on. What an effort that must have been! Convincing people that their ancestors could be extracted from the ground and stored as skeletons in caves underground. What a massive amount of land that must have freed up!
    - DiscourseFan 2y ago
      Def not what really happened, since the arrangement down there more closely resembles macabre interior decorations than any reasonable funerary arrangements. The catacombs are the result of Paris being built on top of numerous underground tunnels that have existed at least since the Roman era but were massively expanded in medieval times.
  - aubanel 2y ago
    I'v been a lot down the Catacombs, and still go sometimes, but I think you have a too grandiose view of their significance. Their most ancient existence is as stone carries, the storage of bones only started late, in the XVIIIth century. They never really held big significance for Parisians. Source: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carri%C3%A8res_souterraines_de_Paris https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carri%C3%A8res_souterraines_...
arnaudsm 2y ago
Modernizing was the least anachronistic option indeed! Cathedrals used to evolve and expand over time. Now they are frozen in time. Just like the political state of the church. Major conservative donors blocked any attempt of modernization of Notre Dame. They insisted on reusing lead for the roofing. Highly inflammable wood for the hidden frame.
atombender 2y ago
I'm a big fan of modern architecture, and I understand where you're coming from. That said, I think the main argument for sticking to the traditional design that architectural consistency trumps modernism. There are countless examples of old buildings being retrofitted with a modern one, and it rarely works well. You usually end up with this kind of cyberpunk Borg look of old tech merging with new tech, with some futuristic augmentation sticking out like a sore thumb rather than blending in organically. Of course, maybe someone could have come up with something that would have worked, if given time. The one design submission I quite liked was Vincent Callebaut's faceted glass roof and spire, but the other submissions were not great. The Sagrada Familia is church built completely from scratch, so it's not really a fair comparison. It's also not a modern design; Gaudi was pretty unique even in his time, but design was ultimately a product of a particular age.

aubanel 2y ago

Why would you want Notre Dame to represent modern condition ? I'm very happy it was not the way you suggest, because that would have been a high risk of getting a ugly/huge/provocative addition by a modern fame-craving architect, à la Le Corbusier or Jean Nouvel. This is a 1000 years old church that has hosted France's history, not a company office in Manhattan.

kmlx 2y ago
an argument could be made that this was a once in a few generations chance to do something different, or at least change/add to the existing design. another argument is that the building saw many changes from ~1180 to today, so change was actually part of the history of the building.
- wqaatwt 2y ago
  > to do something different Entirely just to do something different? Or for any actual reason? I mean things like: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/france-notre-dame-green-scli-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/france-notre-dame-gree... are just outright plain ugly due to many reasons and this is one of the nicer looking alternative proposals that I could find.
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    If there's one reason the French can't compete in the modern economy its because they are so painfully conservative in their culture. Elon Musk might be a cook with reactionary tendencies but he is a far more imaginary cook than anything the French can come up with. Did it really all end in 1848?
    - wqaatwt 2y ago
      What ended in 1848? I don’t really get the relationship between these two unrelated things, you’re free to use whatever architectural style you want when building new houses and office buildings in France as far as I can tell. By that standard other Europeans are even more conservative.. Germans rebuilt the Dresden Cathedral and palaces despite them being a complete ruin for decades. The Polish rebuilt Warsaw, Gdansk and I assume other cities almost entirely from scratch pretty much as replicas of their pre-war state. What does that say about them?
  - kmlx 2y ago
    they cancelled the design competition and went with an identical reconstruction: https://www.thelocal.fr/20200710/macron-gives-blessing-to-recreate-notre-dames-gothic-spire https://www.thelocal.fr/20200710/macron-gives-blessing-to-re... part of the reason was to have it ready for the olympics since a design competition would take a long time.
whazor 2y ago
The original creators would have intended the cathedral to be grandest as possible.
- zelphirkalt 2y ago
  That would have cost probably even more than restoring it. It might have been extremely criticized by the public, as a funding grave, a bottomless pit swallowing a lot of funding for foreseeable future. The grandest these days is ... very grand. So grand, that there is no other building worldwide achieving it yet. We have learned a lot and would be capable of a lot, if there was a need to.
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    >there is no other building worldwide achieving it yet The Sagrada Familia, which is nearly complete.
DiscourseFan 2y ago
There are many catacombs in Paris. Nobody knows how deep the system goes. They were there before Haussmann, before the Normans, before the Goths, before the Romans, perhaps even before the Gauls. Your idea of what is French, however, is not what is buried underneath in the collective unconsciousness of the city, what supports it, but instead the reproduction of what people want to believe represents the city. But the Notre Dame no longer exists, it was a symbol of the power of a Medieval state. Paris today is a city of malls, broad avenues and apartments. We kid ourselves to believe that putting it back will "continue" its history: the history is buried under the immediately visible surface, its waiting for you to get lost in it. If we could build something that might unearth that history, perhaps it might be possible to begin to remake the city of Paris once again.
- profsummergig 2y ago
  I read somewhere that the catacombs were the result of needing cemetery land for building on. What an effort that must have been! Convincing people that their ancestors could be extracted from the ground and stored as skeletons in caves underground. What a massive amount of land that must have freed up!
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    Def not what really happened, since the arrangement down there more closely resembles macabre interior decorations than any reasonable funerary arrangements. The catacombs are the result of Paris being built on top of numerous underground tunnels that have existed at least since the Roman era but were massively expanded in medieval times.
- aubanel 2y ago
  I'v been a lot down the Catacombs, and still go sometimes, but I think you have a too grandiose view of their significance. Their most ancient existence is as stone carries, the storage of bones only started late, in the XVIIIth century. They never really held big significance for Parisians. Source: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carri%C3%A8res_souterraines_de_Paris https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carri%C3%A8res_souterraines_...

arnaudsm 2y ago

Modernizing was the least anachronistic option indeed! Cathedrals used to evolve and expand over time. Now they are frozen in time. Just like the political state of the church. Major conservative donors blocked any attempt of modernization of Notre Dame. They insisted on reusing lead for the roofing. Highly inflammable wood for the hidden frame.

atombender 2y ago

I'm a big fan of modern architecture, and I understand where you're coming from. That said, I think the main argument for sticking to the traditional design that architectural consistency trumps modernism. There are countless examples of old buildings being retrofitted with a modern one, and it rarely works well. You usually end up with this kind of cyberpunk Borg look of old tech merging with new tech, with some futuristic augmentation sticking out like a sore thumb rather than blending in organically. Of course, maybe someone could have come up with something that would have worked, if given time. The one design submission I quite liked was Vincent Callebaut's faceted glass roof and spire, but the other submissions were not great. The Sagrada Familia is church built completely from scratch, so it's not really a fair comparison. It's also not a modern design; Gaudi was pretty unique even in his time, but design was ultimately a product of a particular age.