The same was said about buildings throughout Germany in 1945. Yet many were rebuilt. It will not be the original, true enough. But how much you wanna bet they’re gonna do it anyway, as a sign of perserverance, or just plain cussedness?
CC
Reims Cathedral was destroyed during WWI and largely rebuilt by the late 30’s.
I lived in Berlin for four years. My wife is German who was born during the war and grew up during the rebuilding of West Germany.
First, Notre Dame is more than a building. It is a work of art inside and out. It will be impossible to replicate. The wooden interior of the building was replete with carved paintings.
Second, the rebuilding of Germany and its major cities was not a matter of replacing the bombed out buildings with replicas. The Berlin of today scarcely resembles the capital before the war. Lots more glass and steel.
Third, I lived a couple of years in Warsaw. The Poles painstakingly rebuilt the totally destroyed old center of the city, Stare Miasto. They used architectural drawings and pictures of the old town. They even used many of the old bricks. But they could not recreate many of the finer details because they lacked the skilled artisans to duplicate them.
I guess it is okay to be pollyannaish during times like this, but the sad reality is that Notre Dame has been largely destroyed. We can create some facsimile like they do in Las Vegas, but we cannot replace Notre Dame.