[HN Gopher] The Miraculous Resurrection of Notre-Dame
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       The Miraculous Resurrection of Notre-Dame
        
       Author : divbzero
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2024-09-18 04:41 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.gq.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.gq.com)
        
       | cmpalmer52 wrote:
       | Damn, that article was interesting, but too hard to read on my
       | phone with the ads jerking it around.
        
         | littlestymaar wrote:
         | I don't know how people accept to brows the web without an ad
         | blocker, especially on a small phone screen where ads are just
         | invasive...
        
           | allenrb wrote:
           | Since I've made pihole a part of my home infrastructure,
           | using this same phone away from home is noticeably much more
           | painful.
        
             | fragmede wrote:
             | there are other ways to block ads
        
             | littlestymaar wrote:
             | Installing Firefox + unlock origin does the job without the
             | effort.
        
       | thrance wrote:
       | As a parisian, I'm still a bit sad the conservative opinion won
       | and that the roof was rebuilt exactly as it was before the fire.
       | 
       | It wasn't even the original roof! It was rebuilt with little
       | concern over faithfulness to what existed before, not two
       | centuries ago by Viollet le Duc.
       | 
       | After the fire, they were some neat proposals for a glass roof,
       | or some wild ideas like a walkable, vegatalized one. But even
       | without going there, nowadays it seems like old stone is sacred
       | and we can't touch it anymore, ever.
       | 
       | We would never have had the glass pyramid in front of the Louvres
       | or the Eiffel Tower with this mentality.
        
         | littlestymaar wrote:
         | I'm really glad de didn't go for the monstrosities that where
         | proposed after the fire.
         | 
         | I'm was not against making something new (like what Violet le
         | Duc did), but everything was so lazy and dull I'm really glad
         | they got dismissed.
         | 
         | > We would never have had the glass pyramid in front of the
         | Louvres
         | 
         | This is big misunderstanding: the glass pyramid wasn't built by
         | replacing parts of the Louvre: it was built in place of the
         | _parking lot_ of the ministry of Finances! (And yet, to say it
         | was controversial back then is a massive understatement)
         | 
         | Also Parisians now aren't against new things, we've been
         | numerous to sign a petition to make the Olympic flame aerostat
         | a permanent feature of the city.
        
         | thegrim33 wrote:
         | I mean you're entitled to your opinion but I'm not sure I can
         | really understand this one. Should the Romans build a nice
         | glass dome over the colosseum, maybe rebuild part of it with
         | steel? What about the parthenon? I'm fine with building new
         | stuff in new styles, but would rather we preserve historical
         | works the best we can.
        
           | seszett wrote:
           | It's a bit different I think because the roof itself was
           | never "preserved the best we can", it's "just" a sort of
           | fantasy roof built at a time when Violet le Duc rebuilt many
           | monuments using his imagination and fantasy with little
           | historical basis.
           | 
           | I can't really say which would be best myself, but the point
           | is since the roof is already the not historical part of the
           | cathedral, it makes little sense to rebuild it exactly in
           | that precise not historical way. Instead, it could keep being
           | the one evolving part of the building.
        
           | thrance wrote:
           | Yeah, you have the right to your opinion too, and you're
           | clearly in the majority so I respect that.
           | 
           | The last time Notre-Dame was rebuilt, by Viollet le Duc, it
           | had been left in ruins for over a century and was redesigned
           | as an idealized version of what it never was. So we are only
           | preserving this version of the past by rebuilding it this
           | way.
           | 
           | Also, a glass dome over the collosem would be _hideous_ ,
           | which I think is reason enough not to do it :)
        
           | ccppurcell wrote:
           | I don't think it's obvious what it means to preserve
           | historical works. A really clear example of my point is the
           | Cerne Abbas Giant, a chalk figure on a hill in England. For a
           | long time the idea was to try to leave it untouched. Adding
           | chalk was seen as something like touching up the mona Lisa.
           | But it was in danger of being lost and if memory serves it
           | was discovered that when it was made people would refresh the
           | chalk regularly. It's inherent to the work that it is
           | maintained.
           | 
           | Let's say this giant is at one end of the spectrum, and the
           | Mona Lisa is at the other. Its subjective where you place
           | cathedrals, but certainly the builders intended it to be an
           | operational building, and throughout its history there have
           | been additions and modifications.
        
           | BrandoElFollito wrote:
           | Notre Dame had multiple accidents over the centuries. Every
           | time something was rebuilt there was a war against changes.
           | And yet many things changed - what you see is not what it
           | looked like before the incident.
           | 
           | What exactly is different this time so that we do not leave a
           | piece of contemporary history in Notre Dame?
           | 
           | Context: French, huge amateur of Middle Ages history.
        
           | majormajor wrote:
           | Historically the answer was "yes, rebuild the Colosseum with
           | different materials," it's not just a modern thing. The
           | desire to make it more original is stronger now than ever
           | before in many places IMO.
        
         | failbuffer wrote:
         | My cynical take (as an American) is that anything but the
         | previous design would have been subject to politicization and
         | protracted decision-making. Donors would have been more fickle,
         | stakeholder groups would have mushroomed, and reconstruction
         | probably wouldn't have even started yet. From a project
         | management standpoint, the decision to keep it the same was as
         | absolute win.
        
           | thrance wrote:
           | Yes for sure, I never had much hope for any kind of change
           | because of the reasons you gave. I think it's quite telling
           | of our time how we cling to some idealized idea of the past.
        
         | samatman wrote:
         | As a resident, your opinion trumps mine. But mine is that the
         | Louvres would be much nicer without that pyramid. I don't care
         | for the aesthetics of it, nor the mentality it represents.
        
         | bane wrote:
         | I'm really torn on the movement the Pyramid seems to have
         | started. I absolutely hate how obstructionist it is presented
         | at the Louvre - annihilating every sight line and demanding
         | everybody pay attention to what's basically just a covered
         | escalator to some ticket booths.
         | 
         | But on the other hand I'm totally unbothered by the Royal
         | Ontario Museum, or the big symbolic "wave" crashing down on a
         | Japanese colonial building that makes up the shape of Seoul
         | city hall, or the Union of Romanian Architects building.
         | 
         | and I'm in love with the L'Ecole de Musique et de Theatre in
         | Louviers because it was used to extend and enhance the beauty
         | of the original.
         | 
         | Basically, it can go really wrong or really right.
         | 
         | We _know_ that the previous construction of the Notre-Dame was
         | beautiful, but we don 't know what kind of nonsense we could
         | end up with with some really over eager starchitect trying to
         | make a point.
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-21 23:01 UTC)