Notre Dame Reconstruction

I think they mean the actual buildings and layouts, rather than the fact that people lived there 500 years ago. It's quite normal in Italy or Southern France for example to walk past churches that are 500-1000 years old

The Basilica of St. Paul's in Rome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Saint_Paul_Outside...) has a very similar story. It's even older than Notre Dame (4th century) and was burned nearly to the ground in 1823 by, wait for it, an accident involving a worker repairing the roof. The church was rebuilt using contemporary methods and today it&#x

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...

Like you, some people complained when the Baron Haussmann transformed Paris or when Eiffel erected his Tower, or when the Louvre Pyramid was built. I see it as an opportunity to make it better. All buildings in Europe that have survived this long have evolved over the centuries. The Mezquita in Cordoba is also a great example with a mosque built around a cathedral.

My view is that tons of buildings in Munich that we view as "historic" are mere recreations of the originals that were destroyed in World War 2. Notre Dame will be rebuilt, and it will merely be a part of its long history that it survived the fire. People will always long for how something was before, but unfortunately, that's not life.

Now if only stadia were built to last, like cathedrals...

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.

Maybe cathedrals are meant to take decades? Time spent that takes longer than a lifetime makes the building non-disposable, and it makes its builders understand they are working on something bigger than themselves. Consider that some took centuries to finish (looking at you, Cologne).

> this is the history of the Cathedral >Exactly. There aren't many old structures that don't have a history littered with damage or complete destruction and rebuilding. Natural disasters, invaders, accidents. I like to think that those events are becoming less frequent with increasingly better tech and a more civilized world. This one was an anomaly I think. It will be interesting to learn the cause(s) and see what practices might be put in place to avoid them in the future.

Building a cathedral is not like building a bazaar!