Posted on 04/20/2019 12:38:28 PM PDT by OddLane
President Macron’s speech to the French nation about the fire that destroyed so much of Notre Dame contained a terrible threat: he said that the cathedral would be rebuilt, to be even more beautiful than before. This might seem an innocuous, even laudable aim, but the announcement of Prime Minister Édouard Philippe that a competition would be held to design “a spire suited to the techniques and challenges of our time” should send a chill down the spine of anyone familiar with the efforts of modern architects in Paris, the effects of which can be seen all around the city.
The monumental public buildings constructed using techniques to meet the challenges of our time include the Centre Pompidou, the Tour Montparnasse, the Opéra Bastille, the Musée du quai Branly, and the new Philharmonie, each one of which would gain at least an honorable mention in a competition for ugliest building in the world. The Bibliothèque nationale de France was largely rehoused using the techniques of our time, which included failure to notice that the damp caused by a low water table and sun shining directly through walls of glass were not very good for fifteenth-century books.
As for the post-World War II vernacular, with its curtain walls and ribbon windows, it is universally depressing, a single one of its buildings being able to ruin the harmony of an entire street, and in fact often doing so. In central Paris, modern architecture is vandalism; in the suburbs, it is hell...
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
Macron is the biggest current threat to France.
I would expect a minaret topped with a rainbow flag.
One would think that that Notre Dame is the property of the Catholic Church and the Catholics themselves would determine how it was rebuilt. Then again the relative silence on the destruction of a Catholic icon by “pope” Francis says volumes. Suspect if it were up to him, he would leave it as a ruin. If the French wanted to convert it into a museum, doubt he would object.
The debate about how to restore Notre Dame is not a new one but was also an issue in the 19th century when it was reconstructed after the French Revolution. Much of what we saw before the fire in Notre Dame was in fact a Romantic reconstruction of the medieval age by the architect Viollet le Duc and not original to the 13th century cathedral. For instance, the spire which we all saw engulfed in flames was only 166 years old and of Victorian design, not medieval. Viollet took from the ancient and brought in the then “modern” interpretation with its new materials and created a beautiful church that has stood the test of time. Shouldn’t we wait until we actually see the new plans before they are rejected? Perhaps there is a new Violett le Duc out there who will surprise us?
I was reminded by our FRiend Campion that already long ago, during the Revolution, the government confiscated Church property. No doubt factions would have set fire to it even then.
Just a footnote. Indeed, France's churches (few new ones are built) are owned by government at various levels, and they allow the Catholic Church to use them. Notre Dame is owned by the Central Gov't - Ministry of Culture. It is effectively a state-run museum that offers Catholic Mass.
The other interesting side-effect is that, in effect, Catholicism is under regulated state control, while Islam, arriving long after secularization laws were passed, effectively operates in a "free market."
Notre Dame belongs to the French State, they stole it many years ago, they just 'allow' the Church to use it and pay for its upkeep.
All of those moronic proposals just to give the world another tourist trap. Seeing it was one of the reasons I went to Paris. A modernized version will not be on my list. But the proposed “Improvements” would make the time I visited more special, as in I was able to see it before it was screwed up.
There are plenty of tourist traps withing driving distance of my house. Ones that don’t require a long plane ride or involve seeing many Muslims if I go there.
Where ever Muslims go, they burn churches and rebuild them as mosques. They’re doing the same in Europe and the government is helping them.
“Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology.” Opening narration to “The Six Billion Dollar Cathedral.”
Baron Haussmann please call in
Ahmmmm...... we learned today on Free Repblic,that Notre Dame and all churches, protestant and catholic, built before 1905 are the property of the state.
The burned out hull is owned by France, not the Vatican.
It was news to me too
Western Europe.
In Eastern Europe they aren’t giving the Islamics a toehold. They remember their history.
Christ don’t need no stupid edifices
In fact I think all the wealth and ostentatious of the church would offend him
He didn't mind having $15,000 worth of perfume poured on His feet, when all those who thought they needed to defend God asserted that it should have been used to feed the poor.
God's wealth creation power is sufficient for feeding the poor and proclaiming His glory simultaneously. The Devil does not deserve all the good architecture.
An Islamic minaret would certainly be appropriate, you know, in anticipation.
Thank you cajin. Exactly. Notre Dame was built to the Glory of God, same as Mozart’s masses and so forth. When God is exalted, the world is right.
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