Just recreate the past
January 30, 2025
After the fire at Paris' Notre-Dame in 2019 and the destruction of the cathedral's wooden spire, President Macron came forward with an idea: France would host an international design competition and look to replace the lost spire with a "contemporary architectural gesture."
This precipitated a bunch of bold and "out there" proposals, but ultimately the public wasn't down with this idea. Polls showed that the majority were in favor of just restoring the 19th century spire designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. And so the idea was dropped.
This, of course, is not surprising. For better or for worse, I bet that if you asked a random sampling of people whether they prefer old-looking architecture (technical industry term) or something modern, the majority would likely say they prefer the former.
Of course, in this case, we're not just talking about any old-looking building. Notre-Dame dates back to the 12th century and is one of the country's most recognizable symbols. People are naturally going to feel strongly.
But what is perhaps more interesting is that is an instance of history repeating itself. Viollet-le-Duc's 19th century spire was obviously not Notre-Dame's original medieval spire. It had replaced a previous one that had, for whatever reason, become unstable over the course of a cool five centuries.
And interestingly enough, the idea of doing something different was also rigorously discussed in the 19th century and the answer, then, was also no:
Viollet-le-Duc himself turned down a proposal to add two new spires atop the towers, arguing that such a monument "would be remarkable but would not be Notre-Dame de Paris". Instead, he proposed to rebuild the original medieval spire and bell tower over the transept, which had been removed in 1786 because it was unstable in the wind.
Striking the right balance between preservation and progress is always a tricky one. But it's maybe comforting to know that this struggle has been going on for as long as we've been designing structures. And in the case of Notre-Dame de Paris, there's a long history to look to: just stick to the past.
I'll let all of you be the judge as to whether this was and is the right approach.
Cover photo by Fabio Rogerio Sant Ana on Unsplash
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