Should Notre Dame cathedral be repaired or preserved in its damaged state?

Updated

First reports of the catastrophic fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris have highlighted the emotional reaction of Parisians and visitors alike.

People reportedly wept and sang Ave Maria together as the destructive impact of the fire became apparent.

That emotional response is a measure of the sense of connection that people feel to extraordinary places such as Notre Dame. The cathedral is, of course, more than simply a place of religious worship.

In many ways it is, or was, an architectural embodiment of France itself, a major marker of national meaning.

Hence the rapid response of French President Emmanuel Macron, who has resolved to rebuild the cathedral. The building "is our history, it is our literature" he noted and the "epicentre of our lives".

But does the emotional response of bystanders and the obvious grief of people around the world lead inevitably to this decision to rebuild the cathedral just as it was?

Cathedral spokesman Andre Finot noted that the building had sustained "colossal damage" and that "nothing will remain of the frame". Seemingly counter to this, President Macron noted that the exterior structure had been preserved and the cathedral would rise again.

Is it "half destroyed", or is it "half intact"? How should we view this badly damaged monument?

And, presidential posturing aside, what should the French do in the wake of this conflagration?

Restore or preserve?

Conservation philosophy provides different answers to this depending on where we look.

The great French architect and architectural theorist, Eugene Emmanuelle Viollet-le-duc, the man most responsible for Notre Dame as we know it, would almost certainly say we should restore and rebuild.

Viollet led a controversial restoration in the 1840s, '50s and '60s. He repaired and re-establish the building as a more coherent Gothic statement

As part of that project Viollet also changed the form of the famous flying buttresses along the nave. Most controversially perhaps he removed 13th century work in order to present an elevation more like what the original may have looked like.

Rather than protect the historic fabric that was there, he chose to remake what was probably there at the very beginning.

Viollet famously noted that "to restore a building is not to preserve it, to repair, or rebuild it; it is to reinstate it in a condition of completeness which could never have existed at any given time".

Were he alive today, he would recommend, I think, that Notre Dame be rebuilt using the best available knowledge of the building and the most advanced technology.

Yet Viollet's English contemporary, the leading art and architectural critic and historian of his day, John Ruskin, would very likely have recommended a different course of action.

In light of this week's fire, Ruskin would have suggested that the Cathedral be afforded a dignified end, or at the very most be stabilised in its ruined state.

Ruskin opposed all conjecture in restoration, and called restoration a "lie from beginning to end".

For Viollet, what we call heritage, was a matter of living culture, a tribute to the past sustained and inevitably remade in the present. For Ruskin, on the other hand, the work of the past belonged decidedly to history.

To remake or "restore" our monuments was folly, and a travesty of the dignified labour of the people who created them

Should we accept Notre Dame's demise?

He, like the designer and advocate William Morris after him, believed ancient buildings should be protected through daily care. If this did not, or could not, guarantee their survival we should accept their demise with equanimity.

How do we adjudicate what belongs to the past in Ruskin's sense, and what is ours to reshape and pass on?

These are not simple questions, and recourse to conservation philosophy and methodology cannot furnish a simple answer.

But contemporary thinking in the heritage conservation field asks us to reflect carefully on what we value.

That is, to reflect not just on what the experts think, the historians, architects and archaeologists, but the ways in which French society, and indeed people all around the world, value the place.

That is something that requires careful thought, listening and deliberation, not just bold declarations of resilience and determination.

The French will almost certainly reconstruct Notre Dame, and that seems appropriate given its centrality to both civic and religious life in France and its rich and controversial history of restoration and reconstruction.

However, the bromides of politicians and philanthropists, jostling to appear the most grieved by its loss and determined about its future, should not be the last word.

If the decision is made to reconstruct, it should be the result of a far reaching and inclusive discussion about the historical meaning of the place and its ongoing value to us today.

Cameron Logan is an urban and architectural historian at the University of Sydney's School of Architecture, Design and Planning.

Topics: architecture, event, fires, australia, france

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