That would be a great article to read… if I didn’t have to subscribe to read it. And these days even WaPo “gift” links require making an account in order to view them.
Just read that graphic article. Near the end, it mentions, “There is a competition — opposed by historic preservation groups — for the design of contemporary panels in chapels off the south aisle.” I don’t know exactly why the historic preservation groups are objecting but like most cathedrals, this one was not built to one fixed design, but instead was built over centuries and the design, art and architecture changed over that time. For example, the spire is being reproduced to the design of the previous one, built in the nineteenth century, and that one replaced one from the thirteenth century. Building a spire to an entirely new design would have been valid as well.
I think every single one of my posts in this thread has been a variation on ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that’ and so I find myself saying so again.
The stained glass windows in question survived the fire. Indeed, they have already been put back in place. This therefore isn’t about ‘restoration’ at all; it is as if the fire had never occurred, but that it was being suggested that some of the windows should be replaced with something a bit different.
That case could be made. There is nothing in any way radical about new windows with modern designs being installed in old churches. Also, some of the windows to be replaced are very bland, consisting of little more than geometric patterns. They are hardly the prime examples of the work of Viollet-le-Duc and his craftsmen. Mind you, the proposed replacements aren’t exactly avant-garde - there seems a good chance that they’ll end up being no more than bog-standard modern Catholic kitsch.
This controversy seems entirely manufactured on both sides. The argument that the restoration needs to leave its own mark would be more convincing if other, more prominent features, such as the new altar and font, didn’t already do that.
Lord Grimthorpe’s ‘restoration’ work on St Albans Cathedral in the 19th c. was controversial even in its day, and has been lambasted by generations of architectural critics as more like vandalism. Grimthorpe took the view that as he was paying the bills, he was entitled to order things as he saw fit.
St Albans Cathedral - Wikipedia
As someone who works in heritage conservation, a major building repair has thousands of decision points where someone needs to make a call - This door was this shade of red, are we going to paint it the same shade again or different?
What sort of paint? This 200 year old door does not give compliant access to the toilet - how do we deal with this? They used hot metal rivets in the frame - can we replicate this? And so on, for every stick of timber. And all addressed to ‘what purpose’. As heritage practitioners our ethical priority is to retain the heritage significance of what we are conserving. If that is embedded in the fabric then we conserve that, if its in a history of use then that his our priority. The French are trying to conserve a historical Notre Dame; if they want a new one, they can build it somewhere else and avoid all that decision-making.
As APB says, its a lot more complicated to find the decision of least pain than was described in articles about those windows. On the facts as given, I think all my prof colleagues would be asking [as with every one of the thousands of decisions about keep/replace, with what and how] - why is it necessary, and what does it add to the heritage value [past and future] of a major building? If we simply want to mark the fire as an event in Notre Dame’s life, then so much of the fabric already speaks to that.