Notre Dame Cathedral reopens | Hacker News Reader

Notre Dame Cathedral reopens

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219 pointschmaynard166 comments

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!

Ship of Theseus comes to mind.

That 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.

The ship of Theseus was never really destroyed either. It was a functional ship with services.

I 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

> 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.

A 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.

It 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.

I 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.

Our 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.

> 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.

This is demonstrably wrong, as we have many examples of old buildings and we know what people actually feel about them.

Consider two very famous examples of buildings that completely changed their purpose, but are still the same building: the Pantheon and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The Pantheon was a Roman temple to all of the Gods when it was built in 126, and became a Christian church ~400 years later, but everyone recognizes it as the same building. The Hagia Sophia was a Christian church built in 537, and 1100 years later became an Islamic mosque, but it is still the same building to everyone.

Then for the opposite example: St Peter's Basillica at the Vatican. This was built in 1506 on the site of a much older church, also called St Peter's Basillica (commissioned by emperor Constantine), which also served as a Christian church, was also used the parish of the Pope, was also the location of papal coronation and so on. And still, no one would say "St Peter's Basilica was built by Saint Constantine", because the current basilica is universally recognized as a new building, despite serving the same function.

A building is recognized for the beauty and specifics of its structural and painterly elements, not for its role. If it is destroyed and rebuilt in almost the same size and shape, then it is recognized as the same building; regardless of entirely changing its purpose.

Conversely, if a building is rebuilt into a completely different shape, even a universally admired as beautiful one, it is considered a different building, even if keeps serving the same purpose.

The Pantheon no longer exists. It is now the church of St Mary and the Martyrs. And this is the difference I'm getting at.

The Pantheon is a temple dedicated to all the ancient Roman gods. It cannot be both that and the Church of St Mary and the Martyrs. When the Church took it over, it ceased to be the Pantheon.

There's no doubt the building is the same, and we can argue about how 'true to form' it is. But that's the point. When it stopped being what it originally was, its 'form' is now a goal to never deviate from.

Whereas, the various depictions of the martyrs present within the Church of St Mary and the Martyrs, for example, has no such ideal yet. The Church can (and does) shift that around. However, if it were to stop being the church of st Mary and the Martyrs, then it would have an ideal form that any restorer may want to restore it towards.

You could try doing a search for the Pantheon vs the Church of St Mary and the Martyrs to see which is alive in the general consciousness and which isn't. Ultimately, the Pantheon is not a temple to the Roman gods, it's a particular building in Rome. It used to be a temple, now it's a church, maybe 100 years from now it will be an exhibition space. It will still be the same building. And the building is far more culturally important then the current parish inhabiting it.

For what’s its worth, this conversation has been a treat to read. Not sure who I agree with.

IMO, they're both right, but for anon291's reasons. tsimionescu's perception of The Pantheon is reflective of a shared cultural consciousness, albeit one that's cosmopolitan and intellectual. He and anon291 (maybe) see different buildings because they either have different cultural perspectives--i.e. perhaps anon291 is a practicing Catholic (or esoteric pagan?)--or at least anon291 is cognizant that many people would see a space with a meaning quite distinct than tsimionescu's. The Hagi Sophia is great example--most foreigners see one building, local Eastern Orthodox see another, and local Muslims a third.

It's difficult, if not impossible, for people to see architectural spaces in the way an animal or alien might see them. Even when the culture which built it is totally alien or unknown, that basic fact, plus the context in which it is seen by the observer (including how they arrived there), as well as typical architectural features (e.g. steps) imbue it with meaning that color everything about it. Our whole world is like that. Take, for example, a stop sign--we simply can't perceive that object, at least without effort, without the culturally imbued meaning. It's not just a red & white octagon with shapes in the middle; the meaning vastly overshadows its raw physical properties.

You’ll have to wait a long time to think about it, lot of materials of the cathédrale are originals (especially the stones)

The 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.

I 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?

It may surprise you but people are still building medieval castle in France: 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 (sry but there no en page for this article).

Something close in en: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Devoir

The 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.

I know that the bells were made in the Netherlands- which has a long history with church bells.

If you're in the US, you can apply to attend the American College of the Building Arts.

https://acba.edu/aboutacba

They were established in Charleston SC after Hurricane Hugo when it was discovered that the US did not have enough craftspeople to repair all the historic homes that had been damaged. You can get an accredited Bachelors degree in architectural ironwork, plastering, timber framing, and stone carving.

> 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.

I'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.

Another one to see : Notre Dame de Strasbourg

Darker, different stones but incredible too

You 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-cathedra...

Hopefully a fire detection and suppression system was added along the way!

Well, 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.

There was already one but I guess an old system as it took quite some times to locate the fire

I'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.

You mean to replace the whole building with a beautiful brutalist structure made of dark concrete?

You 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

> 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.

They are hideous and repulsive.

You mean things like:

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.

Many brutalist buildings are beautiful

That would be nothing short of cultural vandalism. It's certainly the prerogative of the French people to do that if they wish, but it would be an awful thing. The world doesn't need more ugly modern buildings.

It was a restoration, not a grand re-imagination. When works of art (like a painting in a museum) are damaged, they restore them to their previous state.

There are very, very few old buildings in the world that haven't been rebuilt and reimagined at least once in their lifetime, for the majority of them the parts that we find most esthetically pleasing are later additions

The French government held a design competition [1] [2] to gather proposals for a new spire, so the assumption at the outset was not that it would be a mere restoration.

> “The international competition will allow us to ask the question of whether we should even recreate the spire as it was conceived by Viollet-le-Duc,” [prime minister] Philippe told reporters after a cabinet meeting dedicated to the fire. “Or, as is often the case in the evolution of heritage, whether we should endow Notre Dame with a new spire. This is obviously a huge challenge, a historic responsibility.”

However, the senate passed a bill explicitly requiring that the traditional design must be used [3].

[1] https://www.archdaily.com/916723/the-peoples-notre-dame-cath...

[2] https://www.archdaily.com/915355/france-announces-competitio...

[3] https://archive.ph/HgTvo

I would like to add that France (probably) also has no shortage of modern churches, quite a few abandoned. There's no reason to build yet another one.

The grossness of destroying culture aside you’d also be throwing away billions in tourist revenue.

People don’t travel to Paris to see something that looks like a mall.

Af French, I’m happy they took that way. Especially many submissions were quite ugly.

I prefer the approach taken at The Louvre and it’s pyramid of glass that is built next to the historical buildings without modifying them and giving a nice mix between history and modernity

It 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.

One of the most spiritual moments of my life was entering Notre Dame, and I was not expecting it at all, wasn't really excited to go there, and am not really religious. Honestly I expected Stonehenge to be more impactful but Notre Dame is a way more worthy visit.

I was more awed by Stonehenge than Notre Dame. There's just something mystical about it and it's also much more ancient. Notre Dame was another cool cathedral. It's famous but Europe has many.

Either way sounds like an amazing rebuilding effort with many great passionate craftsman working on it. It goes to show that when we want to we can get stuff done. It's like a hackathon in a big company. Let's take from that and do more great things.

>It goes to show that when we want to we can get stuff done.

I have read the EULA. * Terms and conditions may apply. * Not available in all regions.

I sort of feel the same way about Stone Henge and I think it’s an exposure thing. It was maybe the tenth or so stop on my tour of ancient megaliths and after Gobekli Tepe, Easter Island, Avebury, the Baalbek stones, etc it just didn’t feel as special.

I have the same view. Notre Dame just feels like a big regular church. The Cathedral of Cologne, on the other hand, is just something mesmerizing to me. It's like it belongs to another world/dimension and yet somehow fits with the gloomy sky of Germany.

I loved Köln Cathedral. It's a must see in Germany. Equal to any castle.

150 years ago it was the tallest building in the world.

If you love this one, you should visit Notre Dame de Strasbourg :)

> I was more awed by Stonehenge than Notre Dame.

Recommended reading: Dawn Of Everything.

> Honestly I expected Stonehenge to be more impactful but Notre Dame is a way more worthy visit.

I think people underestimate how much Beauty can be path to experiencing the Transcendent.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty#Western_Middle_Ages

I haven't been to Notre Dame, but there are certainly what I'd term "thin places" in the world, where the spiritual is {closer, more accessible, more present}. I would expect a long-lived active cathedral to be one such place. It's not just the beauty, it's something about the physical location being a focus of prayer over time. I don't have a good sense for how it works. Just that it does.

You would love the old city of Jerusalem.

So I hear. I would love to tour it, some day.

Definitely, do this. When you do, take the underground Western Wall tour. The stonework just beggars the imagination.

https://thekotel.org/en/tours/western-wall-tunnels/2/?srslti...

Varanasi in India, more specifically Manikarnika ghat in 2008 for me. I am a rational non-religious person but that place imprinted itself in my heart by exactly this... something else in the air and I mean everywhere I went in that place (apart from ashes of burnt dead which you breath in 24/7). Never felt anything similar anywhere else, not even in St. Peter's Basilica which is an engineering marvel on its own I can certainly appreciate its beauty.

Which goes against whole concept of institutionalized religions and tells a lot about how humans are wired internally, and nothing (at least positive) about existence of god(s) and some made up bronze age rules accompanying those stories.

BTW been to Notre dame before the fire and felt 0 nothing above usual cathedrals effect (compared to say Sagrada familia which wasn't that spiritual but wow effect definitely), but there were various parts to visit and I don't think I covered them all so maybe missed the spot that worked for you.

I'm french. Live in Paris. I do not understand the excitement the world has for Notre Dame. Question for you, reader: what does the fire and/or the rebuild means to you? Why do you care?

For a lot of cultural/literary reasons, I think it's just iconic in a way that many other (at least equally beautiful) cathedrals--that most people probably couldn't even name, even the ones in Paris--are not.

I consider it to be a more recent (but still very old) entry in a category of human constructions that also includes the Parthenon, the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu, and Stonehenge.

I visited Notre Dame the first time I was in Paris, stood in the queue, climbed the stairs and took the photos everyone takes and have positive associations of the trip. The age, location and the view all help make nice memories that I guess many visitors feel. Victor Hugo & Disney probably add to that for others.

If you are in Paris, there are probably 10 other places with more historical relevance.

Notre Dame got to hold the French record for number of selfie sticks per m^2.

I'm guessing it's because of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", which if I recall correctly, Victor Hugo wrote to (successfully) stimulate desire to repair/restore the cathedral around 1800.

For me, personally, I think that Gothic architecture is the height of beauty, especially the interior. Notre Dame is one of the first examples, and was built quickly enough to have a consistent architecture (also Chartres and Amiens). Many Gothic cathedrals took 100 years to build and you can see variations in the architectural style in the different pieces which lessons the beauty somewhat. I also like the French circular apse rather than the English square apse (although that does allow for a gorgeous, huge window).

I also think beauty is important, especially in buildings, and Notre Dame is just a great example. It's beautiful inside and out. I've even spent quite a long time just enjoying the beauty of the back side.

It's just so great to know Notre Dame been restored successfully.

Decades ago I took a tour into roof/rafters and I took many photographs because I was interested in the woodworking and construction. I'd dearly love to do that tour again and compare the old with the new.

I have very fond memories of a vrml model with textured surfaces distributed as an .exe for unreal engine. Flights through the inferior and up into the vaults.

I still have the exe but it seems to be very fussy about running and I haven't managed to make a virtual Windows it will tolerate.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/throwback-thursday-vr-notre-d...

We were very lucky to see Notre Dame before it burned. So glad it’s been restored.

Wow that's great! I'll be totally honest, I completely forgot that fire happened until now. It was really big news and at the time I thought it would be the defining moment of 2019, then COVID happened and I pretty much forgot anything else that had happened that year.

Meanwhile Israel is destroying churches and mosques much older than notre dame and the world shrugs..

And they rebuilt it with all the lead that posed problem when it burned.

Lesson not learned. Go figure.

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20241205-how-lead-exposur...

I was very surprised to learn this is indeed true.

"As the flames engulfed the cathedral, a whopping 400 tonnes of lead from the roof and spire went up in smoke, according to French authorities."

"The decision to rebuild the spire and roof of Notre-Dame exactly as they had been in the 19th century by covering them in lead deepened the anger already felt by the members of Notre-Dame Lead and raised the eyebrows of politicians, non-profits and local residents.

To justify the decision, the institution in charge of restoring the cathedral, Rebuilding Notre-Dame de Paris, ruled out any danger of direct exposure to the substance. “Covering the roof structures of the nave, the choir and two arms of the transept with lead does not expose any member of the public to lead, as they are located some forty metres from the ground and are inaccessible,” the institution told French daily newspaper La Croix in a December 2023 article, assuring it was taking the matter “very seriously”."

Later in that article:

    “But Notre-Dame was not the only location to be affected,” Toullier pointed out. “Lead levels were very high all around the cathedral, on metro platforms, in bookshops on the Place Saint-Michel and even in surrounding schools.”

    At the end of summer 2019, Notre-Dame Lead reported levels of up to 123,000 μg/m², which represented 25 times the "standard" threshold of 5,000 µg/m² set by the regional health authority ARS, at the Place Saint-Michel, a 10-minute walk from the cathedral. “Yet no significant clean-up operation was carried out. It was as if the problem didn’t exist,” Toullier lamented. 

    “But what about run-off water from the roof, which will be laden with lead?” asked Thébaud-Mony. In a notice published in January 2021, the French High Council for Public Health estimated that “the roof of Notre-Dame alone … would emit around 21kg of lead per year (about two tonnes per century) in run-off water”.

    “Lead could have been replaced by another substance like zinc or copper,” said Thébaud-Mony. “When alternatives exist, why choose lead and risk human health?” This was the case for the Chartres cathedral, destroyed by a fire in 1836. The original structure had lead roofing, which was replaced by copper when it was rebuilt. Though perceived as less stable, copper is significantly less toxic.

> Though perceived as less stable, copper is significantly less toxic.

If have thought the reduced weight quite a bonus too.

from https://aleteia.org/2024/11/04/how-does-notre-dame-of-paris-...

    In more detail, Notre Dame's new fire protection system rests on five pillars.

    The first is surveillance. “In addition to thermal cameras, an air suction and analysis system will be in constant operation,” explains the public institution in charge of restoring Notre Dame of Paris. “Any outbreak of fire detected by at least two pipes will automatically trigger the misting system.”

    The system will release a mist consisting of fine droplets of water diffused into the wooden framework, which, if necessary, will considerably reduce the temperature in the space and smother the incipient fire.

    The third pillar is the thickening of the batten: the thin planks of wood that separate the trusses from the lead roofing. “One millimeter thick has a fire resistance of one minute: We added 15mm [0.6”, editor’s note], giving the fire a quarter of an hour less chance of spreading to the roof,” explains the company.

    Fire-stop trusses have been installed to separate the spire from the choir on one side and the nave on the other. They divide the space in three, preventing or delaying the spread of fire from one to the other.

    Finally, the entire network of dry columns has been redesigned to facilitate firefighting operations. The flow of water that can be mobilized has been multiplied by three to reach up to 600m3 (264 gallons) of water per hour.

600m3 is 132,000 imperial gallons. Seems a more likely order of magnitude.

1m³ ≈ 264 gallons, so it seems they forgot to multiply by the 600.

What were the choices they had when picking a roof material? While lead has it's disadvantages, it was probably the best choice of them.

Lead - the traditional material using for cathedral roofing is easy to work with, easily soldered to prevent leaks, but is heavy and is toxic when burned.

Copper - Also a traditional material that is easy to work with, also easily soldered to prevent leaks, is lightweight and non-toxic. But the roof would be green afterwards (once it oxidizes) not dull gray.

Steel - Lightweight, can be cut & bent to fit around crenelations. But can't be soldered - any waterproofing would have to be done with caulking & crimping other steel over joints. Available colors to match the original lead. Won't last as long as some other choices (it eventually rusts).

Composite asphalt shingles - just no.

Wooden shingles - Moderately difficult to work with. Easily burns. Will get moldy unless treated with chemicals.

Slate tile - Very difficult to work with, but inflammable. Heavier than lead and is brittle. But it would have a similar color to the lead its replacing.

Concrete tile - similar pros + cons as slate, but cheaper and doesn't last quite as long.

Copper is the best choice from your list.

Color is ok. Anyway the original color of the outside of the cathedral was nothing comparable with the monochrome stone white of today (that's right, churches and cathedrals were artistically painted, in the Middle Ages).

And there are plenty of copper roofs everywhere in France, including on cathedrals.

Also you forgot to mention zinc.

Wow must have a very self confidence to think people are so dumbs especially after what I’ve be done during 5 years (or having a very poor historical culture)

Yes I'm absolutely sure they made a mistake by replacing it with lead again.

Tradition is not always the right answer.

Or will you sweeten your wine with lead salts like in the 19th century, just because tradition?

Reminder: the original burned down because of cigarette smoking.

Still the original one… 80% were saved from the fire

What I really would like to understand is what Musk was doing there? No relation with France or Notre Dame, supposed to be kind of an agnostic and not a "fervent catholic". And why he took the spot of anyone else that could be a fervent catholic just by being rich...

He spent $250M to elect Trump so now gets to be in the inner circle and travel with him, simple as that.

It's more than just traveling with him... he or his representatives are interviewing and hiring key government officials. (See link below.) Basically Musk is running the US government like it is another Musk company.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/us/politics/trump-elon-mu...

But remember, the same conspiracists who love Trump will decry politically active billionaires like George Soros for decades but if it's a Right Wing Billionaire actually paying for positions that is cool and normal.

>No relation with France or Notre Dame, supposed to be kind of an agnostic and not a "fervent catholic".

True liberalism is a church opening its doors to anyone desiring to come in, and someone able to appreciate and pray as he desires. Freedom of religion. Musk might not be a "fervent Catholic", but is that really even relevant in celebrating the restoration of one of the greatest cathedrals?

Identity politics like this truly waste all of our times and turn what are simple moments of happiness into artificial problems.

> a church opening its doors to anyone desiring to come in

My invite got lost in the mail, I guess. Or maybe the criteria wasn't just "anyone desiring to come in".

You and I both know this was a party for the powerful and the rich, if it wasn't Trump and Musk it was going to be Harris and Lady Gaga or something. The point I'm trying to make is that nothing is stopping you or anyone from visiting Notre Dame to celebrate its return and perhaps even pray there if you so desire, regardless if you're a "fervent Catholic".

In fact, consider that Prince William is also present. He's a member of the British royal family and heir-apparent to the British throne. The British monarch is also the head of the Church of England, which is a friendly rival to the Catholic Church.

It is pointless to argue for identity politics, only assholes wanting to cause strife do that. Let us not waste our time and happiness on them and that.

Keep in mind the church doesn't own the building. It's owned by France and France gets to invite whom they want. The church just uses the building by arrangement.

I only say this because you're not really supposed to be selling seats to a Mass. St Peters for example all masses are public. There are tickets but these are free if it's expected to be large.

> I only say this because you’re not really supposed to be selling seats to a Mass.

“Not really supposed to be” in the sense of “it is a crime under canon law (Canon 1380) for both the seller and buyer punishable by a wide range of sanctions, including interdict and, for someone in orders and/or holding church office, suspension.”

The bulk of the opening invites are going to either state friends or significant donars.

The rebuild fund donars arguably had no expectation of invitations when they put put up cash many years back to fund the rebuild.

It was reported that the block of French Luxury goods companies that put in over $500 million even went so far as to not claim that contribution as a tax break.

( https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/salma-hayek-billionair... )

So they put in money, but not for tickets and some didn't even use it as a tax break.

Isn't lady gaga catholic? Any random catholic who wants to be there is a better choice than these neoaristocratic freaks.

>Isn't lady gaga catholic?

I honestly don't know since I am not interested in celebrities let alone what they do in their private times. I just rattled her off as the first thing to come to my mind for a recently popular western celebrity.

>Any random catholic who wants to be there is a better choice

Again, this was a party for the powerful and rich. This was an opportunity for France and the Church to bolster its political and diplomatic capitals. You need powerful and rich people to come down for that.

>than these neoaristocratic freaks.

Occupy Wall Street was 13 years ago, that kind of sentiment didn't lead to anything constructive then and it's not going to now either.

Because Europe wants space access?

Did strike me as a bit odd. Musk won't be president until January 20.

Maybe he was invited.

I am an unbeliever and I visited a lot of catedrals, basilicas, mosques and synagogues in my life.

You can admire the art and the dedication of the builders without being religious. France itself is a secular state with a division of the State and the Church, and yet President Macron is there, because Notre Dame is a national treasure, not just a religious one.

Also, don't kid yourself about the history of the Church and money. While always verbally pro-poor, in practice, it also always sought connections among the rich. Obscene riches of the high clergy were one of the triggers for the Reformation.

Plus ca change...

When a woman honored the Lord with expensive perfume, it was Judas who complained about this. "Why wasn't this money given to the poor?"

Many flawed people belong to the Church. But the art of the Church does not belong to any individual. It exists to honor and glorify the Triune God from within material creation.

If only we knew which church is the correct one..

Napoleon: "don't you know that I can destroy the Church?"

Bishop: "my colleagues have been trying for 1800 years and haven't succeeded."

Just my opinion, but the overlap of those admiring the artistry of gothic cathedrals and those actually building a car like the Cybertruck is zero.

Frankly, SpaceX rockets, ships and spacesuits are visually cool as hell.

True story European monarchs used to have a veto on who gets elected as Pope... The church stopped being independent and became a political tool long ago.

The attention w seeks attention. I guess no big surprise there. They should have banned him off the ground of course, as he is as un-christian as it gets. Maybe they hoped some holy water and crosses could drive out the evil spirits or something.

Trump's +1? Since his wife probably didn't want to come

So that he can build one when he goes to mars ?

Kourou ?

Space X don’t care about it as far as I know, they already what they need in US

As French, I didn’t get it either maybe due to the presence of Trump and Macron seems to like him after that…

This modernization ruined it. I've seen it in 2000, I have no interest to see this "restoration".

French monuments get restored all the time that’s how we keep our patrimoine . And in this case, we can’t speak about modernisation…

Again, I have no interest - just like I have no interest in visiting Disneyland.

I wonder what would a ceremony like this look like before the era of cameras broadcasting every move to the entire planet simultaneously. It does seem like a lot of this is performative in the “showtime” sense, and I wonder if the character of an event like this would be more “practical” in another time.

What does a practical opening ceremony even mean? It's in the name, it's a ceremony, a ritual.

Even if it wasn't being broadcasted, this is an act of prestige that flows both ways. Power people go these events to lend their gravitas, and power people go to these events to borrow from the gravitas.

If cathedrals were practical, they'd look like big cross-shaped barns. To turn the restoration of a city's cathedral into a spectacle befits their nature. They were supposed to inspire awe.

You think pomp and ceremony weren't a thing before the TV/social media age?

You may enjoy reading Pillars of the Earth

Unlike the Mycenaean Lion's Gate, constructed with stone, using technical dry-stone masonry, Notre Dame was susceptible to sabotage. Post-2019 conflagration, reconstructing its arches, colonnades, spires, and stained glass windows - much of which survived high temperatures is a testament to Gothic architecture. In the Bronze Age, temples, remnants of sacrificial tombs dedicated to resurgent sacrificial rites in satiating Baal, still stand in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Depending on the materials, stone structures will whether incineration, even retaining frescoes prefiguring Christ.

I saw a picture of the insides on another site, it looked like a Disney castle with the stone polished to look almost white. Why not just restore it to look like before the accident?

Why shouldn't restoring it to "just like new" not be allowed? This reviewer says entering it now is like the medieval builders had just finished it, it's almost like time travel: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/dec/06/notre-d...

medieval builders would have relied on the use of flame and natural light.

I think it all looks great with the exception of white-spectrum LEDs as far as the eye can see; the natural lighting of the past Notre Dame during early morning was special -- maybe it still is , but the white LEDs everywhere make it look 'clinical' to me.

Not sure but I think these lights are temporary the time for the ceremony, I would be very surprised they keep using them while other French cathedrals don’t.

I wouldn't say "not allowed" because art is subjective, but there's a certain awe in visiting a place that shows clear signs of being many centuries old.

I obviously haven't visited Notre Dame yet, but when I visited the fully rebuilt Berlin Palace last year I did get an impression of "this place needs to age a couple hundred years before it's done".

I wonder what that was _actually_ like given that it took 200 years to build. A lot less pollution so maybe it really did look _all_ shiny and new :-)

As sibling-comment said, no LEDs back then. They probably used soot-billowing torches, 200 years of that means the building must've looked pretty shabby already when done. So the state it currently is in is unrealistic after all.

I have complete trust in The Guardian to publish incorrect opinions on this matter.

The Notre Dame is a historical building. It's not meant to look like "new".

That’s the purpose of a restoration, like la gallerie des glasses à Versailles or Le Louvre and many other monuments in France.

The same applies to paintings

Old buildings look so dark die to centries of dirt. Especially since industrialization and automobiles. But before that due to fires (for heating and light) For many of those old buildings there are light stones beneath the dark layer.

Same for glass windows, which in old times haven't been as clear as today possible, but still lighter than after centuries of dust settling.

The stone likely may have been painted, originally too. I asked a tour guide at Chartres about the why the floor was so rough and the walls so perfectly aligned. She said that the walls were not perfect, they painted over the stones and drew lines of perfect boundaries because the walls and ceiling represented heaven (perfect), while the floor represented earth (imperfect), so it used rough, variously-sized, unevenly fitted stones.

(Incidentally, this is related to why there are gargoyles on cathedrals. The church building is a microcosm of the cosmological universe. On the outside is untamed wild, which is where the monsters are (a monster being something we do not understand or cannot integrate, hence the abundance of chimeral combination of multiple animal and/or human parts). Inside the church is where the Kingdom is, with a baptistry at the beginning, because you enter the Kingdom through baptism. Then, the masses of the people in the Kingdom. And originally the altar was behind a screen, which represented the holy of holies, where God is; now this is often represented with a raised platform for the altar.)

Such a sign of the world we live in that restoring a old building raises a billion dollars, but we somehow can't afford to house people who are freezing to death in the streets.

If a billion dollars was all it took to solve homelessness, it would have been solved a long time ago. France spends tens of billions on it annually and as you noted, it's far from solved.

Heck a single city (San Francisco) spends over a billion dollars annually on homelessness, and the problem just gets worse every year.

if you pour money on a problem, you create all sorts of incentives for the problem not to go away.

Put more simply, spending money on something tends to get you more of it.

Does that mean Notre Dame is going to burn more often?

They certainly increased the chances by replacing the burnt roof with an as of yet unburnt one. Not saying that that would have been the prefered solution. And of course they tried to mitigate this increase in flamability with a modern fire protection solution.

Who is spending money on burning it down?

No, obviously, spending money on Notre Dame is getting us more of it, on account of one Notre Dame is more than no Notre Dame.

It's funny because the number of homeless people if I recall correctly is around 10k and total number of people receiving aid is double or triple of that. One may wonder where that billion goes.

To pay salaries of people who debate how to "help" homeless

France’s social spending is around $509 billion per year.

France also has a form of guaranteed minimum income.

Spending a billion to repair a historic national treasure is not only a drop in the bucket at the scale of a country, it’s likely ROI positive due to the tourist revenue that would be lost if France were to abandon their national treasures over the centuries.

Being angry about this is irrational.

> a drop in the bucket

Don't forget it can be written off over 50 years or more. That's a paltry 20M/year.

I’ll go a step further and say that we shouldn’t spend a single penny on homelessness that could instead be donated to cancer research.

In fact, cancer research should receive zero funds that could instead be put towards care for needy children.

And we shouldn’t even waste money on those kids, when it should instead be used ito fight climate change.

The obvious compromise is build lots of gothic cathedrals for the homeless around the world.

If the French welfare state, by far the most expansive on the planet (France spends around a third of its GDP on social expenses), is too small for you, you will be sour for the rest of your life, because your demands are unrealistic.

In practice, most people including me prefer to spread public spending into various projects, and yes, that means that the homeless don't get an absolute priority.

I suspect that you, in your private life, do precisely the same. If you wanted to live your preached values, you would have to live Mother Theresa-like life of ascetism, spending your days and your income to help the poor instead of buying yourself nice electronic gadgets and eating good food.

Do you do that? If not, why do you complain about the rest of the world not doing it either?

>but we somehow can't afford to house people who are freezing to death in the streets.

Why aren't you taking the freezing-to-death homeless people into your home?

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.

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.

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.

> 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-gree...

are just outright plain ugly due to many reasons and this is one of the nicer looking alternative proposals that I could find.

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?

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?

they cancelled the design competition and went with an identical reconstruction: 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.

The original creators would have intended the cathedral to be grandest as possible.

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.

>there is no other building worldwide achieving it yet

The Sagrada Familia, which is nearly complete.

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.

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!

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.

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_...

Its a metaphor

Then it does not really meet its goal, if it wants to convey the idea that "the true identity is hidden underground" by referring to something that isn't the true identity.

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.

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.

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