Notre Dame de Paris

Dr. Vito B. Caiati, historian, contributes the following:

With regard to Notre Dame, I have several observations. First, the cathedral had not been properly maintained. Its neglect by the French government has been raised by architectural conservationists for several years. Second, the fire alarm systems of Notre Dame appear to have been inadequate, in that the first alarm sounded at 18:20 on the day of the fire, but the technology employed did not indicate the location of the fire to the technicians in the cathedral. Thus, this first alarm was judged to be “false.” A second alarm sounded 23 minutes later, a lapse that allowed the fire to spread to the “forest” of ancient, roof-supporting oak timbers, many of which dated from the time of Charlemagne. The fire was so extensive and intense that the north tower of the cathedral was almost lost to it (15-30 minutes more of flame and it would have collapsed). Only now is the Minister of Culture calling for a review of the security systems in all cathedrals: too late. Fourth, there are “modernist” forces at work to interfere with the historical reconstruction of the cathedral. It is one thing to argue that the structure supporting the roof, which will be invisible, masked by the stone vault below and the copper roof above, need not be made of oak (1200 very old oak trees would be needed) as the original but rather of concrete, as in the reconstructed Cathedral of Reims or metal as the recently restored Collège de Bernardins in Paris, and quite another to impose some modernist horror in the form of a new spire, which is what the bien-pensant rulers of France apparently have in mind, the prime minister Edouard Philippe calling for a competition on its design and Macron (to whom Matteo Salvini hilariously refers as “il signorino”) recommending “un geste architectural contemporain.” These people are drawn from the same smart-set multiculturalists who blocked any reference to Europe’s Christian roots in the European Constitution and who have remained largely silent in face of the wave of church desecrations that have swept France in the last few years (878 cases in 2017 alone). Moreover, they are enthusiastic admirers of the modernist architectural horrors that now beset Paris, from the Pompidou Centre, to the Tour Montparnasse, to the Grande Arche, to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, to the Philarmonie de Paris, and to the proposed monstrosity The Triangle Tower. So the reconstruction may well become a real problem, given the disdain for history, tradition, and Christianity that infects the ruling elites of France. It seems to me that the spire should either be reconstructed according to the 19^th century design of Viollet-le-duc or left off the roof entirely as it was before his renovation.