Hacker News Reader

Comment by TuringTest | Hacker News Reader

> “It’s Notre Dame de Paris turned into Disneyland,” claims the Paris-based architect Maurice Culot, the author of several books on religious architecture in the 19th century. “It does not make any sense”

Cathedrals were the theme parks of their era, expensive buildings dedicated to work as an economic focal point and gather visitors from far away, to expose them to a narrative journey on a single theme.

So it only makes sense that they rebuilt it for the same *purpose*, adapted to today's conditions. People complain about not rebuilding it in the same *style* as in the twelfth century, but we are not in the same society so the narratives from that time would not work the same way.

View on HN

> Cathedrals were the theme parks of their era

More like public capital buildings, but those themselves have a cultural function with regard to the sponsoring entity that results in them being something like theme parks, so the analogy isn’t completely inapplicable.

And “are”, not “were”. Cathedrals are still a thing, of course, and are still built, and the interiors reconfigured, in accordance with the changing views of the local and universal Church as to liturgical practices and pastoral needs.

That's like saying every historical monument or building should be redesigned in a modern context. No thanks.

What's so bad about fire safety?

Obviously the controversy is not regarding any sort of changes made to improve fire safety.

They've been doing that to cathedrals for 𝚝̶𝚠̶𝚎̶𝚕̶𝚟̶𝚎̶ seventeen centuries, why would they stop doing it now?

For reasons of expense (and some others) its usually pretty gradual with cathedrals, plus, most active cathedrals — those that are still operating as episcopal seats — are not owned by a State that wavers between indifferent and actively hostile to the Church.

And even modest remodels of cathedrals (or even parish churches, or auxiliary buildings like parish halls) tend to be controversial, without Church-State tension, or larger scale remodeling of the type at issue here.

It was not gradual when the cathedral suffered a fire or a collapse. They would rebuild a traditional romanesque basilica in a gothic fantasy of endless towers seeking the sky; or they would install a baroque dome and façade, completely modernising the appearance of the building.

> It was not gradual when the cathedral suffered a fire or a collapse.

Yeah, my point is that those are unusual events, resulting in bigger remodels and associated larger controversies, while even the more routine remodels tend to be controversial.

That is, while the event precipitating it may be somewhat unusual, the situation resulting from the precipitating event, including the large proposed modernizing remodel and the controversy over it, is not at all an abnormal result of such an event.

> They've been doing that to cathedrals for 𝚝̶𝚠̶𝚎̶𝚕̶𝚟̶𝚎̶ seventeen centuries, why would they stop doing it now?

Because not all "modern contexts" are equivalent. We're at a point now where the "modern context" is so cheap it's become boring and mundane.

If the building hadn't been redesigned in a modern context several times throughout its life, it would have been an old dilapidated stone church and not the icon it is today. The reason people care about this church and that it resonated with people throughout history is that it has continuously been redesigned and renovated in a modern context.

Yes, but usually that's done with respect for what's already there, not "hey we have millions of donations, let's throw all this old junk away and install a multimedia show for tourists instead".

Quotes to support my statement:

> Altars in the chapels would also be displaced and only four confessionals maintained on the ground floor.

> So the chapels, some of which could be renamed after Asia, Africa and other themes, should display “multiple offerings” such as light projections of Bible quotes in foreign languages including Chinese.

That's a very modern mindset, dating to the second half of the XXth century.

Before that, the mindset for reconstructing historic places was pretty much "hey we have millions of donations, let's throw all this old junk away and install a multimedia show for tourists".

One might say that any old historic building that is not in ruins has already underwent at least one of reform in that style.

> Yes, but usually that’s done with respect for what’s already there, not “hey we have millions of donations, let’s throw all this old junk away and install a multimedia show for tourists instead”.

There’s always a complex dialogue between maintaining what exists, cost, and adapting to new practices and ideals. Where there is massive destruction, though, that usually shifts the balance far in the direction of new designs, because cost no longer heavily favors the status quo.

Speculating wildly, I'm wondering if part of it is a fundamental conflict in what the church is for. Is it a museum (what the State wants) or an "indoctrination center" (what the Church wants).

From the Churches point of view, if no one leaves thinking "maybe Catholicism is for me after all" then on some level they're not doing their job right. I guess that explains the focus on Chinese tourists since that is a huge untapped 'market' I'm sure they would love to break into. Having "multiple offerings" makes it easier to A/B tests different types of marketing and tailor the sales pitch to the audience. At the end of the day the Catholic church has always been business and their primary goal is to convert as many 'customers' as possible, and church architecture as always been a reflection of that mission.

They want to move the other confessionals to the 1st floor. The chapels were near derelict before the fire apparently.[1] Renaming chapels and projecting lights doesn't have to mean throwing away things anyway.

[1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dc03e1b8-512d-11ec-8d72-b...

> If the building hadn't been redesigned in a modern context several times throughout its life, it would have been an old dilapidated stone church and not the icon it is today. The reason people care about this church and that it resonated with people throughout history is that it has continuously been redesigned and renovated in a modern context.

The old Church did resonate with me (though the Sagrada Familia definitely resonated more), but a modern light-show definitely wouldn't resonate at all.

I think think part of the point of cathedrals is to be a little otherworldly, and chasing the "modern context" subverts that. That may not have been true in the past (stained glass is insanely expensive and you definitely wouldn't have seen it everywhere hundreds of years ago, even if it was state-of-the-art), but it's definitely true now.

by the same thought pattern, we should rebuild colosseum into a mega mall, right?

Whatever was the purpose of given historical monument the key word is WAS. We are not living in those times and its a place that ties us to our past, historical portal. That's its function now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com