Notre Dame rises again

"botching all the work" and "not meeting french quality criteria" are so far away. Almost as laughable as quoting le Canard Enchainé as more than a tongue in cheek rumour mill.

> Some of the wood used in the foundational carpentry work (tabouret) was found to not meet quality criteria ( not dry enough ).

I would love to see your article, because I think their journalist just doesn't understand how carpentry works :)

In the case of Notre Dame, the works is _extremely_ difficult. We're talking about fitting a massive amount of Oak timber that used to came from 200-300 years old oak trees into a monument.

Finding trees that are in good shape and -at least- old enough so they can be used whole for carpentry is difficult. Turning a tree into a single huge oak beam is difficult. Transporting a beam to Notre-Dame without damaging it is difficult. Assembling several beams together into a "ferme" is difficult. And, of course, carpentry is often done with same-age trees cut at the same time so they can age together in place and dry on site for tighter fit. Getting that repeated xn times is difficult.

If the oak was "too green", that's not an issue, as long as the rest of the oak is also "too green". They will bend and crack, and that's usual for oak carpentry. It's literally the least of their issues.

By the way, the original "forest" of Notre-Dame was built from oak trees that were transported onsite via the Seine. Trunks directly in water. So the wood was completely soaked when cut into place. It's something we don't do anymore, so the oak can be "not dry enough" as you want, it's still going to be dryer than the original.

Any project this size will have to surmount much larger problems than that. Those sound like minor issues.

> It should also be noted that Georgelin is willing to do anything in order to meet the 2024 deadline, even if it means botching all the work.

Almost everyone I know who is in charge of anything is happy to do this.

None of this sounds like botched work. It sounds like someone trying to maintain a strict deadline, willing to bend the limits of the work place norms and in this particular instance, I respect that.

The interior of the "Sainte-Chapelle", which is nearby is even more breathtaking, IMHO. Both deserve a visit.

I was in Paris for only a day in 2015 and saw Notre Dame from the outside but did not have the time to wait in line. I fondly remember everything I was able to experience walking up and down the Seine that day, but a small part of me regrets being so close and not going in.

I've had people tell me it's just a church. Course they've never visited. I was there for the first time in 1975. It took my breath away, there's definitely something spiritual you feel to your core. I felt extreme joy, awe and happiness.

The only other time that I've been such moved is when I visited Dachau. But it's a different feeling one of darkness and extreme sadness.

Both are worth visiting to experience the true arc of human experience.

I totally get it. As a non-Catholic, I still fell in love with Notre Dame, my wife actually was so moved at our first glance she cried. You never forget a traveling experience like that!

And if you are in Paris and can't visit Notre-Dame because it is under renovation, maybe go see some other gothic cathedrals that are less than an hour away by train, such as Beauvais' or Chartres'.

For what my opinion is worth, I was awestruck by Beauvais' cathedral personally (even though, or especially because, I visited a fair number of period churches). Its nave is incredibly high, high enough that the aisles vaults by themselves are higher than some entire churches. It's also only halfway done, which is somewhat disappointing from an architectural perspective but fascinating from an archeological perspective: half the Carolingian cathedral is still there, which is a rarity.

I felt that way when I first saw it, but there are so many other cathedrals, bigger ones even. and the others have fewer people so more peaceful etc.

Those photos are really beautiful.

We'll never know. That's for future generations to decide!

Notre Dame took about a century to complete, keeping it around for at least ten times its construction time isn't crazy compared to other structures.

In that vein, the Sagrada Família [1] might get finished this decade, was started in 1883, and is likely to be kept around for a couple centuries.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia

Probably buildings that gain historical significance - that's a very hard thing to predict but I'd guess the next important site is probably going to be where Ukraine and Russia sign a treat to cease violence - assuming that happens and that it happens on Ukrainian soil.

I doubt any of the all-window-facade building will be able to stand the test of time. On the other hand, the parisians wanted the ”useless and monstrous” Eiffel tower torned down after the exhibition (as was the plan) so I think it is inherently difficult to guess.

maybe some of these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_World#Seven_Won...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_7_Wonders_of_the_World

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%CA%BC%C3%AD_House_of...

Big dams and bridges would get my vote (Hoover, Aswan, etc.)

Possibly launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and Boca Chica.

First one that comes to my mind is the Chernobyl sacrophage.

The ones that brings in all the tourists and money?

Every single shed, gas station, and park bench in San Francisco, for starters.

Technically an extension of a much older building, but I think the glass pyramid of the Louvre in Paris, completed in 1988, is iconic enough that we will want to keep it around. It's also easy and practical to maintain compared to other structures we value.

Pentagon.

Due do usefulness maybe a few very significant pieces of infrastructure, but I don't there's such a thing as a new sacred structure because there's nothing that is sacred, period. An interesting observation is that artefacts which were moved from their places of origin (which are still sacred) in the ME to say museums as an explicit act of modern conservation, these were the first artefacts to be destroyed during the recent wars in the region, while anything still stuck in its 'unsafe' places has survived. The defining feature of modernity is that everything is replaceable.

A lot of modern buildings are rebar, and in practice rebar seems to have a lifespan of around 100 years.

They built a modern day replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in downtown SF [1]. If the original is anything to go by, this one should last 600 years!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Tower_(San_Francisc...

Best guess would be the same structures that have been kept around us by over the past hundred years for their importance, scarcity and usefulness.

Some of them being Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal, Machu Pichu, Petra, etc.

Sydney Opera House, Australia.

Impossible to tell.

With modern technology, we could probably take any building and through regular maintenance, keep it forever. On the other hand, we have weapons that can vaporize any man-made structure in an instant.

It is more about how significant it will be in the future, and we don't know. Maybe some random university building will be preserved for centuries because that's where the cure for cancer will be found. Maybe ITER, if it delivers on its promises, it will be of great historical significance, and maybe a bit radioactive. Maybe an airport or train station being built today that will become a major trade hub. An office building that miraculously survives a nuclear war. Some ugly structure that will be seen by generations as the most representative of 21th century art. Anything, really.

Assuming our society endures, I would say many skyscrapers likely to be preserved, especially the iconic ones, because there are economic reasons to keep them on top of historic ones. Destroying a house to build a larger building makes sense economically, but destroying an already large building to rebuild is less interesting in terms of space gained.

I often do image searches for cities I'd like to visit. The old European cities are more likely to be photographed from the street level showing the details of individual buildings, while newer cities in the Americas and Asia are usually photographed from afar as a skyline. I think this indicates a change in how we measure the look of a city.

Ornamentation on the 50th floor is hard to see from the street, while a medieval city is mostly flat (2-5 stories) from afar.

Architecturally ornamentation is out and rarely tried now, so individual buildings don't stand out from the street perspective. Rather, the use of monumental forms (China TV building, London's Shard) are what set a building apart from the city now. And indeed the city itself has become a composition via skylines.

So although the buildings we construct now are much more austere than in the past, the city as a whole has acquired a third dimension which is where the originality plays out. So instead of individual structures standing out, entire cities now stand out.

On the subject of glass boxes, I can agree that they are forgettable.

Answer: we don't know, but most structures from past centuries are gone and replaced by new buildings on a regular basis, so it would not be surprising that we keep doing the same thing in the future as well, with only very "monuments" kept as tokens of the 21st century.

You can enjoy the architecture and art (Notre Dame) without necessarily endorsing the artist (the church institution). Other examples:

- Roman Polanski is a bad human who made good movies

- The Pyramids of Egypt are grand structures but accomplished with slave labor

etc. etc.

Details: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jan/25/how-london-mi...

I don't think Wren's plan looks very concentric or ring-like. He also got to rebuild St. Paul's to a completely new design, in those years. Maintaining the original plot boundaries, as the city was rebuilt, naturally didn't interfere with the cathedral.

Using Ublock Origin to block all the javascript allows the article to be read, without random switches or history hijacking.

I agree, also the article is shown in the UK version of the site, for an European building and somehow displays the temperature in Fahrenheit.

They were necessary back then to keep an open space interior. With modern building techniques they're obviously not necessary.

That said, most people love them

Funny enough I think this was the common view when they were introduced as well. They were a necessary kludge to get certain interior features and through age and context they've become appreciated for their own sake.

They are necessary to prevent the massive weight of the roof from pushing the walls. The benefit of having flying buttresses as opposed to traditional buttresses is that it lets much more light go through the windows. So you can have a higher and larger nave, with larger windows that receive more light.

The key to understanding this architectural choice is that cathedrals are meant to be seen from the inside and from the front, mostly.

>they seem to be recent pictures which have been photoshoped to look like glass plates:

If you click Tomas's name and scroll down some you see on his profile "Photographer Tomas van Houtryve captured the 19th-century grotesques, or chimeras, with 19th-century equipment: under a dark cloak, on glass plates, with a wooden camera he picked up in a Paris antique shop."

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/photographer/tomas-van-...

He's a modern Belgian documentary photographer using period equipment.

There are quite a few people shooting with vintage equipment and techniques. They do it for many reasons - for a specific aesthetic, to evoke a certain time period, to achieve technical qualities not readily doable with modern equipment, because it's fun to play with old tools, because there's a market for art using older techniques, etc.

I have a friend who's business is producing images - portraiture and landscapes - on very large glass plates for example.

http://lachambrephotographique.squarespace.com/

I have another friend who is a high-end commercial photographer by day, but for his personal art, he shoots with large format view cameras - which would be using glass plate negatives - in this style of Ansel Adams or Edward Weston.

I am curious how you arrived to "fake" as conclusion where there is absolutely no sign or reason for faking anything.

I think that it is obvious, to casual observers as well, that this is a modern day photographer using vintage equipment. No need to resort to detective work to notice the obvious modern wiring (which is present in every picture except for one, the elephant), or that the author is still alive, when that information is just in the captions.

And the reason why it's done is obvious, too: It's a great artistic choice that meshes well with the subject's aesthetic.