Noisy Profanity at Notre Dame
- Published 29 May 2019
The grandest icon of sacred Gothic architecture is about to be ravaged by twenty-first century depthlessness and unfetted modern-day propensity toward self propagation. It would have been different if not for the sacredness of the building and that the building had taken two hundred years of sacrifice and toil of ordinary people to build. The building is equally a memory and personification of the spirit of a bygone era. To do anything else other than to reinstate the architectural masterpiece is like repainting Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ or ‘Last Supper’ in a different style, when what was needed was proper reverential restoration.
On April 15, the roof of the Notre-Dame Cathedral caught fire that lasted for 15 hours with most of the roof destroyed together with the iconic spire. Taking cues from early twentieth century misplaced heroism, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said that the government was looking for “a fresh look adapted to the techniques and challenges of our era”. Very quickly architects and designers were jumping into the band wagon with what they thought were their ‘ingenious’ contributions and so-called creativity. Sacré bleau – such profanity!
The original building was finely balanced with the flying buttresses at the side of the building carrying just enough of the original weight and roof, reaching a height not achieved before the 12th century when the main building was completed.The proposals for weighty spires made no sense and the underweight glass roofs are purely decorative. Everything that is proposed other than complete restoration is purely subjective, mere aestheticism or worse: the green house, the swimming pool, the penthouse, the car park are just bad jokes. The rocket with its own scaffolding is undeserving of words.
Least it be forgotten, Notre-Dame is a sacred and religious building; not a humanist building. It is a masterpiece, and the intentions of the original builders ought to be revered; not to be dismissed or be an object of profanity.
Greenhouse with glass spires replacing original roof. The space is to host a fruit and vegetable farm run by charities and volunteers, in order to produce free food for vulnerable local people and according to the designer, “Up to 21 tons of fruits and vegetables could be harvested and directly distributed each year”. The designer goes on to eulogise about supplying to a farmers’ market, providing solar power to the building and being a thermal buffer space, with ventilation being inspired by termite mounds. There is some token nod to the spirituality of the building by the poser: “How can we write the contemporary history of our country, but also that of science, art and spirituality together”.
Meant to be clever but is instead a monstrous aestheticism. Designer here proposes a frightening formal re-enactment of the fire with a 300-foot carbon fibre flame analogy. The designer reasoned, “Some say that we should rebuild the spire as it was originally. Others say that we should design a new one. So, let’s build one as it was… eight days ago”. The designer proclaimed that the idea was meant in protest of rebuilding the cathedral as it was in the 19th century. And again as a token nod to the religiosity of the building, the designer suggests that the flame is also a strong biblical symbol. How weak is that argument!
This skyscraping proposal hints at the Gothic preoccupation with reaching the sky. The original 12th century building was built by an agrarian society with little literacy, but having and honest endeavour to reach to heaven, toiling in devotion for 200 years. The original roof was cross-vaulted that echoed the trees that once prevailed in the French countryside. This instantaneous proposal speculates a beam of light that, “could shoot a new spire into the sky… it would be a ‘lighthouse for lost souls”. Whatever it meant in a science fiction way…
There is much ridiculing going on as designers ridicule one effort after another in the competition of ideas. Is it really about ideas or, should it be about mere honest restoration? How about a rocket launchpad then? Says this designer. The designer propositioned that his pad was designed to “ridicule every remaining, rapacious architectural firm still circling the carcass of Notre-Dame with an ‘idea’ for a new roof proposal”. Looks like there is another competition of ideas on the sideline to see who ‘ridicules’ the best. Cynicism may just trump all the efforts in the fruitless exercise of ‘ideas’.
The penthouse is an ode to Quasimodo, the fictional Hunchback of Notre-Dame in the novel by Victor Hugo in 1831, who was the cathedral’s bellringer. So the narrative goes that due to royalties and countless movies, Quasimodo had become rich and famous. Due to the fire, he can finally follow his dream of having more comfort, light with a green rooftop garden in a new penthouse. The trappings of luxury include a helipad as well as indoor/outdoor pool. This silliness is about nothing at all as at the end of the novel, Quasimodo died.
The proposal for the swimming pool to replace the roof is a one-off singular statement that doesn’t carry any nuance other than another protestation that is clearly meant to capture attention. The idea was not to rebuild the roof as it was but instead, to propose “a meditative public space; a complementary spatial experience to the building with unmatched view over Paris”. The fact is the swimming pool can be anything but meditative; and while gregarious water activities are going on overhead, the real intended meditative space below is utterly spoilt. The designer also underestimate the weight of water that can’t possibly be held up by the original structure.
This collection of giant trinkets is meant as a critique of the other proposals. Yet it doesn’t quite reach the cutting edge of irony beyond just being decorative. However, in words, the author did pose the question whether anything can ever replace the ‘irreplacable’. If the proposal is meant to be just crude, then it has succeeded; but then, why bother?
The car park is not a serious proposal but since it came from the Minister of Mobility and Public Infrastructure from the Brussels-Capital region of Belgium, it aspired to make a political statement. The proposition was in response to the French-speaking Reformist Movement political party’s traffic policies. But then, to dare do so for such a building questions the author’s state of values. This proposal is nothing more than a picture.
Ngiom