Why France is Restoring Notre-Dame
Fifteen months after a great fire destroyed the roof, spire, and some of the vaults at Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral—and severely damaged two rose windows and weakened the stone gable of the northern transept—President Emmanuel Macron has announced that the French government is ready to proceed with remediation, in the form of restoration. While this choice might seem obvious, it was, in fact, contentious: arrived at after a year of intense debates with the Commission Nationale du Patrimoine et de l'Architecture (CNPA), a committee appointed by the French Ministry of Culture, composed of experts, architects, and political leaders. This article examines those debates.
Figure 1. Notre-Dame after the fire, April 16, 2019. Photograph by Louis H. G. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0.
One option discussed was to leave the monument in ruins, with little or no intervention. Because the main structure was not damaged, visitors would still be permitted following such a plan, after stabilization of certain walls, vaults, and other elements. But the ruins of Notre-Dame would mostly remain, serving as a silent witness of the tragic events of April 15, 2019 (Figure 1). History finds ample support for this course. John Ruskin, the nineteenth century English art critic, preferred to leave monuments as they were, seeing restoration as a lie. In The Seven Lamps of Architecture, he explained that it was impossible “to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture.” By this logic, the original spirit of Notre-Dame, imbued by the labor that went into crafting it, could never be reproduced. Restoration would misrepresent it. Painters like Giovanni Paolo Panini and Hubert Robert, meanwhile, depicted decaying buildings as social spaces. In their capricci, like in the Old Temple by Robert, men and women, children, and even a dog, wander amongst the rubble, enjoying the ruins (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Hubert Robert, The Old Temple, 1787-88. Courtesy The Art Institute of Chicago.
Many in France, however, have found this idea off-putting. Once concern is that leaving things as they are might depress tourism, already reeling from the global pandemic. For tourists, indeed, the cathedral is synonymous with romance of Paris. Others, for all of France’s secularism, view non-interventionism as a final—and unwelcome—break between the Republic and the Catholic Church. Macron, like many Catholics, sees the cathedral as too important a religious symbol allow it to decay. Even Jean-Luc Mélenchon (founder of left-wing populist party La France Insoumise, who describes himself as an adversary of the church) opposed such a hands-off approach, on grounds that Notre-Dame is also, in practice, a potent republican symbol. Funerals of French presidents François Mitterand, Georges Pompidou, and Charles De Gaulle, for example, took place in the cathedral. After the surrendering of Nazi Germany in 1945 and after the terrorist attacks of 2015, the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, was played on the great organ.
A second idea discussed was “creative reconstruction”: rebuilding in a new, contemporary, style of architecture. In the months after the fire, many such proposals emerged and received widespread attention in the media. Many of these ideas were made in haste and were eccentric. Some were arguably preposterous. For instance, Studio NAB, a French architecture and design firm, proposed a translucent roof and spire with greenery and beehives (Figure 3). Mathieu Lehanneur, a French designer and artist, suggested the installation of a massive sculpture in the shape of a blaze in place of the spire. The boldness of these proposals struck some—including me, an architect in training—not at as thoughtful or feasible, but as stunts by architects and designers to promote their offices. Some argued that contrasting elements from different periods, no matter the style, would ruin the cathedral further by disrupting its visual homogeneity. François-Xavier Bellamy of the right-wing Les Républicains political party called for humility and warned of the risk of “new world” pride, as modern society is always craving for a more technological, commercial, and immoderate architecture.
Figure 3. Greenhouse proposal for the reconstruction of Notre-Dame by Studio NAB, 2019. Courtesy Studio NAB.
A third possibility that would have addressed Bellamy’s concern but that was also ultimately rejected was renovation: meaning rebuilding to restore visual integrity but with modern materials and construction techniques. This idea, however, raised concerns that it would destroy part of the cathedral’s spirit and aura. In thinking about this approach, it is instructive to consider the story of the ship of Theseus (or Theseus’s Paradox). In Parallel Lives, Plutarch writes that when the ship of Theseus finally returned to Athens, the Athenians decided to preserve the boat. They gradually replaced rotten old planks with new ones, until the entire ship looked brand new. This condition raised the question amongst philosophers of the identity of an object that had all of its components replaced. With new materials and modern techniques, would Notre-Dame also lose its identity? There were also political concerns that undermined support for renovation. Macron had publicly committed to completing remediation by 2024 but there would not be enough time to study and plan for such a complex approach and finish the work by then.
Which brings me to the option that Macron is now pursuing, that I believe, all things considered, is the best approach: restoration, using the same materials and construction techniques as before.
“The boldness of these proposals struck some . . . not at as thoughtful or feasible, but as stunts by architects and designers to promote their offices.”
Readers of PLATFORM might question this logic. They will know that now is not the first time Notre-Dame has had to be rebuilt in the modern era, and that much of what burned was not original, in construction techniques or in design. Decades of neglect, damage sustained in the Revolution of 1789, and a botched renovation left the cathedral in poor shape by the early nineteenth century. So in 1844, Viollet-le-Duc was hired to restore it. In his Dictionary of French Architecture from Eleventh to Sixteenth Century, the architect argued that the “reestablishment” of a building should be made according to surveys, drawings, or photographs, to guarantee accuracy, and that no further modification should be made. Viollet-le-Duc, however, could not follow his own advice; too much had been lost. Instead, he fashioned a new spire in the way he imagined the building’s creators would have done had they had the materials and knowledge available to Viollet-le-Duc (Figure 4). Today, by contrast, we do have the tools at hand to restore, including the original documents and plans made by Viollet-le-Duc, as well as comprehensive building surveys carried out in 2015.
Figure 4. View from spire of roofs, statuary, and gable after renovation by Viollet-le-Duc. Photograph by Charles Marville, ca. 1860. Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress.
Still, despite the technical possibilities and the limitations of the other options, the question remains, why restore? Why follow Viollet-le-Duc’s words but not his deeds, especially in 2020, at a moment of great social upheaval and liberation? After all, restoration is the choice of many right-wing representatives, including Marine Le Pen (president of the nationalist Rassemblement National party), who defend a conservative vision of Notre-Dame.
One reason for restoration is that it is, in fact, what we have already agreed to do. In 1964, architects, restorers, and archeologists around the world convened in Venice to sign the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites. Article 9 states that “the aesthetic and historical value of the monument” should be preserved by respecting the original materials and authentic documents, while Article 13 prohibits additions unless they respect the traditional setting. As Phillipe Villeneuve, the architect in charge of Notre-Dame since 2013, explains, “we are bound to the Venice Charter, which requires that we restore historic monuments in the last known state.” And for every architect who has submitted a proposal for a new design, or critic who has argued that France should follow Viollet-le-Duc’s lead and rebuild using modern technique, others stand with Villeneuve. Architect Jean Bocabeille considers the restoration of Notre-Dame as a new step in its eternal construction (cathedrals being complex structures, they are a perpetual work in progress). Denis Valode, of the firm Valode & Pistre, explains that it is best to replicate Viollet-le-Duc’s replacement spire, and it should not be considered a pastiche, but a scientific reestablishment. Both designers recognize that a building as monumental and unique as Notre-Dame deserves respect and anonymity, not originality and innovation.
But the other reason to restore is that architecture beneath the surface matters. Historic buildings are witnesses of the past and “teach” a history lesson to society. In The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo describes architecture as the “great book of humanity.” Until the fifteenth century, before the invention of the printing press, architecture served as a means of expression, and people “sealed each tradition beneath [such] a monument.” For the lesson to be clear and understandable, it stands to reason, the structure requires historical integrity, complete with the materials and techniques of its period. At Notre-Dame, the roof comprised one of the oldest structures in Paris. It was composed of oak beams, some from trees that were three hundred years old at the time of construction. Like the cathedral as a whole, it was, and remains, a monument to the skill and artistry of the medieval carpenters and qualified craftsmen who built it. Restoration alone respects and preserves this history.
