frenchaucoeur

I'm really not sure whether this is a joke or is serious, but I've read a couple of articles about plans to, shall we say, rethink the interior of Notre Dame as it is reconstructed--to add modern art, "emotional spaces," environmental displays,"discovery trails," and other things that I think would make Bishop Sully blanch.

I know I'm just a tourist and that Paris doesn't exist for me, that it's not a museum and can't remain stuck in the past. I get all that. But come on! Turning the roof into a garden, as was proposed a while back, was bad enough. But this sounds insane. ND is a functioning church and one of the world's great monuments. Surely not being stuck in the past doesn't have to mean undoing all the great achievements of history.

I expect a lot of you won't agree with me (ahem, Kerouac). What do you say?

kerouac

Fake news. There are no plans to change anything about Notre Dame, even when it might have been a good idea. I myself would have been in favor of a more modern spire on top and did not find it essential to replace the destroyed oak beams of the rafters with identical replacements when concrete beams worked perfectly well in Rouen. (Nobody sees them anyway.).

Notre Dame is being restored to its previous (Viollet de Duc) glorious version. I suppose that the huge contributions made (LVMH, Pinault, etc.) for restoration made this decision much easier. Who cares if all of that extra money could have been used for feeding African children or providing vaccines? The delight of tourists is more important.