Comment by asdff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by asdff | Hacker News Reader

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It doesn't seem like the notre dame was the best curated cathedral based on my readings since the fire. The alarm system failed and was far from modern, actually very crude with the guard physically walking to where the fire was reported (which wasn't even where it was), vs it automatically calling the fire department and a specialized team directly and not some half asleep security guard on the night shift. The restoration team working on the roof at the time were all smoking cigarettes and investigators still haven't been able to rule out a mere cigarette causing the blaze. No sprinklers to speak of despite similar fires affecting similar buildings and causing similar billions in damage. No other preventative measures as far as i'm aware; other cathedrals have been covering their beams with fire retardant material. The state owns all the cathedrals but doesn't insure them, so restoration currently has been reliant on donors, and to me its still an open question if it will ever be completely restored as planned (since some donors have even backed out). The fact the building survived seems to be because firefighters guarded the towers and allowed the roof to burn itself out on top of the stone vault which contained it.

> Sprinklers, fire retardant material

A cathedral is - among other things - a memorial to its builders. Changing the building is removing that function. Also, sprinklers may destroy more than they protect.

> The state owns all the cathedrals but doesn't insure them, so restoration currently has been reliant on donors,

This may be just me, but I find a rebuild-by-donations societally and spiritually a lot more meaningful than just some insurer and/or state handing over money. See also: Dresdner Frauenkirche [1]. It shows that society itself cares about the building, its history and cultural importance and spirituality.

[1] https://www.frauenkirche-dresden.de/reconstruction

The state handing over money also shows that society cares. They are the literal representatives of that society.

Also the state "insuring" something is often pointless; the state is larger than any insurer and can simply self-insure.

This is most commonly seen in major disasters where the insurance companies fail and the state steps in.

Yet here we see there really must be a need for insurance. If the building were insured, there wouldn't be a need for donations from around the globe to support its reconstruction. It would just be done out of policy. If the state was able to do this on their own and actually earmarked money in the budget to actually self insure this building, there wouldn't be a need for donations from around the globe. The state can't pay for it, which is why donations are required.

The state handing money means that some parts of the state ruling infrastructure consider the cathedral building to benefit a small part of society - the part that keeps the "representatives" in power. Especially in Europe, where church power has waned in the last decades, I don't think it's appropriate for a government that is supposed to also represent Muslims or Atheists or Buddhists to spend significant resources on the building of a cathedral.

That being said: as a non-christian German I gave a - to me significant - amount of money to the Notre Dame rebuild. I like the idea of helping build a piece of art that will survive me.

Notre Dame has been altered numerous times throughout history and it will be again in the future, either by design or necessity.

True. I still think spraying "the forest", a significant work of artisian carpentry, with flame-retardant foam would have been the way to go.

Rebuild by donations is asking for the project to delay for decades. Look at La Sagrada Familia for enough evidence of how long it takes to construct a culturally significant cathedral using donations and no state support or private investment.

Maybe cathedrals are meant to take decades? Time spent that takes longer than a lifetime makes the building non-disposable, and it makes its builders understand they are working on something bigger than themselves. Consider that some took centuries to finish (looking at you, Cologne).

I mean that might feel good, but practically speaking it means less work is done for more money the longer you wait and let opportunity costs rise.

Fire protection =|= curration. As far as insurance goes, we are talking about a state, slef insurance can work pretty well in those cases.

The fire alarm system was acobbled together legacy system, no big surprise in a century old building. Thr number of cathedral fires, or similar fires in other hostorical buildings is negligible. In a sense Notre Dame served as a wake up call.

It seems the state has not self insured this building if donations are needed to see it rebuilt.

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