The Lure of the Past

Yesterday, Notre-Dame de Paris burned. Nine centuries ago, Notre-Dame de Paris was started. Already, the president of France has vowed to rebuild it, and promises of donations to reconstruct it are being spoke around the world. It's the French version of MAGA.

My thoughts on its reconstruction will of course not be on the list of considerations for its rebuilding, but I think to replicated it would be a mistake.  The cathedral was built with the best engineering knowledge of the middle ages, and it has stood as a symbol of church and state and culture, both loved and hated, ever since. Paris and France now have the opportunity both to honor the valuable remnants of the past and to build something symbolic of our time, keeping the west front and the sanctuary but building a nave and choir with modern methods and modern values, and almost certainly at a lower cost than replicating a relic. A museum could be built to give access to parts of the previous building to far more people than could see them scattered across the huge structure.

The lure of some past, golden age, is always with us, and is especially strong in times of great social and technological change.The gothic revival in the midst of the industrial revolution, which fueled Eugene Violet-le-Duc's nineteenth century restoration of the cathedral, was one example of that lure. I would suggest that such revivalist movements are mostly acts of fear in the face of the new. While Violet le-Duc was recreating a vision of France at  a time of ancient glory, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was building the Great Western Railway in Britain, creating a vision of Britain in a time of new glory.

France, along with the rest of us, is once again in a time of crisis, with people again in the streets, complaining ostensibly about taxes on fuel, but more importantly about the many and deeper discomforts with the seemingly chaotic changes of the contemporary culture. I would suggest that France, and the rest of us who are saying that this week we are Parisiennes, would be better served to find another Isambard Kingdom Brunel than  another Eugene Violet-le-Duc.