Assignment intro:
"In the spring of 2019, a massive fire destroyed large portions of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Efforts are underway to clear the damage and rebuild. ... So what does it mean "restore" to its original character? Is it possible to bring back something that old and is there anything problematic about "updating" the structure?"
Submission:
As Victor Hugo recounted in 1831, he disparaged that architects had changed the Notre Dame. There was lament about changes to the cathedral in 1859. What IF Abbot Sugar’s design for the St. Denis had not innovated. Sugar contends that the older building was inadequate to accommodate the crowds of pilgrims who arrived on feast days” and in general “and too modest to express the importance of the saint himself.” (pg 509) We don’t criticize the building now, the innovations made in 1130. if we needed to rebuild it and decided to rebuild it the specifications that it had in the 5th century, we would be going backwards, according to our current modal.
Who is to say the Abbey at St. Denis is better with the 5th century specs versus the 11th century specs? If we need to rebuild it, now in the 20th century, the inhabitants of the 40th century, what would they see, and which version would they wish to praise as current, or ancient.
The Notre Dame is a powerfully famous Cathedral and a “near-perfect embodiment of Gothic style” (pg 513). But why are we clinging desperately to buildings that stand for a religion that put to death an untold number of innocents because they believed something different.[3] NPR reporter’s Bruno and Boelpaep say “Actress Pamela Anderson said she had attended a gala raising money for "children suffering in Marseille" this week when a "big surprise auction item" came up raising funds to rebuild the Notre-Dame. "I hope they will reconsider and give to where it is needed," she added.
At the weekend, yellow-vest demonstrators complained at the ease with which corporations and wealthy individuals had raised money for a building but had ignored months of protests against the high cost of living.“[1]
While I enjoy art and I do not see benefit in destroying something wantonly, I do not see putting art or architecture above the value of lives. Each life is an opportunity to advance our species to live, to cure disease, to be the next Michelangelo, the next Maria Curie, another Rosa Parks, a Gandhi. We value immaterial above human life, we set stone and accept suffering. What would 1 billion dollars do for the environment? We fund religiosity at the drop of a match but defund ecology as 80,000 acres have Amazon are gone; burned and forever gone[2]. This blue green marble in space is a priceless piece of history and art, it is covered with debris, and smoking, just in a bigger scale. There is something problematic about where our loyalty lies. Some things may be meant to die, like a stone building. Aren’t we focusing too much energy on keeping the wrong things alive?
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48039770
[2] https://www.thecut.com/2019/08/how-much-of-the-amazon-rainforest-has-burned.html
[3] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Death_toll_of_Christianity
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