[HN Gopher] Notre Dame rises again ___________________________________________________________________ Notre Dame rises again Author : gibspaulding Score : 145 points Date : 2022-07-27 16:22 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nationalgeographic.co.uk) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nationalgeographic.co.uk) | fritztastic wrote: | Can the wood beams be seen in the cathedral? Do visitors ever | tour the roof area? I'm trying to understand why it is so | important to rebuild it exactly like the original, the benefits | of this besides being faithful to the historical structure. | Wouldn't it make more sense to innovate and make a new roof that | would offer potential features to the cathedral? | | Anyway I thought this part was funny | | > "I see, monsieur, you have been contaminated by those who | believe the president of the republic should not be interfering | in the reconstruction of Notre Dame," he boomed. "You have been | contaminated by the party of slowness." Georgelin is a good- | humoured alpha type | | Sounds more like a condescending way to avoid addressing the | topic to me, personally. But that's just my opinion. | shlip wrote: | Since the time that article was written, several problems have | arised/surfaced concerning the restoration project (Le canard | enchaine, June 26 2022, p.5): - Some of the wood | used in the foundational carpentry work (tabouret) was found to | not meet quality criteria ( not dry enough ). - An | other lead sarcophagus was found on site in June. Georgelin | refused to have archeologists extract and/or study it. | - The stacked bungalows used as life quarters for workers do not | meet the security criteria and part of them are therefore not | allowed to be used. | | 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. | Luc wrote: | Any project this size will have to surmount much larger | problems than that. Those sound like minor issues. | xwolfi wrote: | "botching all the work" and "not meeting french quality | criteria" are so far away. Almost as laughable as quoting le | Canard Enchaine as more than a tongue in cheek rumour mill. | Reventlov wrote: | Le Canard Enchaine is not a << tongue in cheek rumour mill | >>, it has revealed many scandals in France (mainly | political): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_d%27affaires_ | r%C3%A9v%C3... | | Saying it's a rumour mill is wrong. | cm2187 wrote: | It has also revealed as many scandals that turned out to be | pure libel. It is basically an anonymous postbox for | journalists to publish papers that were turned down by | their own editor. | Fiahil wrote: | > 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. | comboy wrote: | How much is wood drying about getting rid of the water vs | resin freezing (not sure if freezing is the proper word, I | mean it getting hard)? | Fiahil wrote: | It's getting hard because the water goes away. It means the | wood shrinks, warps and cracks as fibers get closer to one | another. | | In the case of Oak, the wood is pretty dense already. The | shrinkage stills happens, but less than green pine for | example. | | Also, green Oak has some pliability to it and is much | easier to work on than seasoned Oak. Carpenters will use | green Oak as much as possible and let it finish to dry on | site, so joins are perfectly held in place and the overall | fit is tighter. Of course, proper craftsmanship would have | built the right tolerances for wood drying up directly in | the work piece. So, you know, I think the carpenters there | have some experience. | | Using seasoned Oak - like what you would find in dead trees | that are still standing - can be super unproductive. It is | so hard that it will break your chainsaw / chisel if you're | not careful and be otherwise full of pest / mushrooms. | | That's why I think the Canard Enchaine is trying to spread | some shit, just because they like the smell. | | PS: you can find more about the process here : | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO0PgfCZHtw (in french) | organsnyder wrote: | Using "green" wood in timber framing is quite common. The | important thing, like you mention, is that it is all of | similar dryness. | hgazx wrote: | vidoc wrote: | telotortium wrote: | Tl;Dr it's being rebuilt exactly as before (according to the 19th | century Viollet-le-Duc restoration). | RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm wrote: | The pictured glass plate photos seem fake to me, i.e. they seem | to be recent pictures which have been photoshoped to look like | glass plates: | | If you go to the gallery you'll notice the 3rd picture contains | some cables at the bottom. | | These cables seem to be attached to the building by a | *transparent* piece of material. | | Which would be plastic I guess? | | And transparent plastic wouldn't have been used for attaching | cables to buildings back then? | | It also says "Photograph by Tomas van Houtryve", and that person | is still alive according to Google. If it really were glass | plates he would probably be dead already? | ganbatekudasai wrote: | 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. | ryanmercer wrote: | >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. | RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm wrote: | Thanks for figuring that out! | | Now further questions arise: | | Did he artificially age the glass plates? | | Because the damage of the photo layer at the edges would | normally be due to aging? | | How would you even age them artificially like that? | | Also, where do you obtain fresh, unused glass plates | nowadays? I have a suitable camera but no plates! :) | ryanmercer wrote: | I have no clue about the process but if I had to guess I | imagine it has something to do with the chemicals not being | evenly distributed either by inexperience, some sort of | mask used before chemical exposure to achieve the effect, | or the process is just prone to doing that. | jonah wrote: | The process is just prone to doing that. | | It's a combination of things - uneven application of the | likely hand applied chemical coating, handling the plates | by the edges while loading and processing, unevenness of | the metal frame surrounding the plate in the camera, | older lenses which had vignetting and lower sharpness at | the edges, processing chemicals seeping into the edges of | the coating, etc etc. | jonah wrote: | You can do an internet search for plates for your | particular size or model of camera. They're probably out | there. | Palomides wrote: | j lane dry plates | | https://www.pictoriographica.com/dry-plate-blog | mvuijlst wrote: | Short film here: https://vimeo.com/699756494?embedded=true& | source=video_title... | [deleted] | [deleted] | jonah wrote: | 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. | bendbro wrote: | Thank god they didn't pick one of those modern atrocities. | | And yes, before any speculate, I am unironically an out-of-the- | closet bigot. | pen2l wrote: | I was fortunate enough to visit it the year before it caught on | fire. | | It's just a cathedral, I thought, just an attraction to check off | from my 'list of things to see' so I visited it on a whim really | on a lazy Sunday afternoon while I was around the area. Oh man, | there is something about it, the grandness, the structure. The | rebuild appears to going for a very faithful reconstruction of | what it was before. | | Definitely go see it if you get the chance. | drewzero1 wrote: | 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. | mytailorisrich wrote: | The interior of the "Sainte-Chapelle", which is nearby is even | more breathtaking, IMHO. Both deserve a visit. | cjaro wrote: | La Sainte-Chapelle was far better than the Notre Dame for me. | I went to mass at the cathedral but the art and design of the | Saint-Chapelle was more beautiful to me. I grew up catholic | so maybe huge grand cathedrals don't really inspire much | beyond reluctance and memories of suffocating in stuffy | cathedrals my whole childhhood. | | It is a beautiful piece of history, but that's the extent of | it for me. Cheers to those to find the cathedral moving or | breathtaking. | anonAndOn wrote: | They hold (held?) small, intimate classical concerts in the | chapel infrequently during the summer which gave the audience | a glimpse of what it must've been like to live like royalty. | The experience was sublime. | bloomingeek wrote: | 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! | regentbowerbird wrote: | 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. | kakwa_ wrote: | Another beautiful cathedral around Paris is Amiens. | | It's a more recent cathedral than Notre-Dame, and | consequently higher, nearly as high as Beauvais in fact, but | this one didn't collapse (even if she needed a very costly | iron belt to stay that way). | | It's also located near the quite nice Saint Leu neighborhood | with tons of restaurants near the main canal. And right next | to Saint Leu, you have the Hortillonnages (crisscross of | waterways and small gardens) which are also worth a visit | (it's possible to rent boats to visit them). | | It's only ~1 hour away from Paris (Gare du Nord) by train, | and definitely worth spending a day there in my opinion. Just | don't be afraid by the sight of the tour Perret when exiting | the station at Amiens ^^. | rmason wrote: | 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. | SECProto wrote: | I visited and while I found the scale somewhat awe-ing, it | didn't have nearly as much an impact on me as you've | described. What did have such an impact, however, was La | Sagrada Familia | spawarotti wrote: | https://archive.ph/V9ALy | 1337shadow wrote: | Nice little story about how the people burnt Notre Dame a couple | centuries ago. This makes me think about how Notre Dame has been | rising for a millennium, how are we supposed to believe it "took | fire" exactly? Cause the article is clear: last time it burnt | like that it was because people did it on purpose. Do you think | whoever did this has been forgiven, or "is yet to be found"? | justinator wrote: | A wonderful article. As a lover of art history, Notre Dame is an | interesting example of European living art. As a former Catholic | now atheist, I just don't know exactly how I feel about it's | symbolism. | | I never had doubt that the cathedral would be rebuilt, though. A | few years to rebuild is merely a wink in the time it took to, | "finish" it. | VHRanger wrote: | 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. | justinator wrote: | I... know. | | Although your examples are pretty bad. Roman Polanski is | still alive, lives within the same legal boundaries of my | world and should face the same repercussions for crimes. I | may elect to not watch his films in favor of another artist | as I certainly do not condone his behavior. | | A historical church from the Middle Ages built by generations | of anonymous builders - maybe a different situation. | jakear wrote: | Slaves didn't build the pyramids: | | > Animal bones found at the village show that the workers | were getting the best cuts of meat. More than anything, there | were bread jars, hundreds and thousands of them - enough to | feed all the workers, who slept in long, purpose-built | dormitories. Slaves would never have been treated this well, | so we think that these labourers were recruited from farms, | perhaps from a region much further down the Nile, near Luxor. | | https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/were-the-egyptian- | pyram... | jacquesm wrote: | The church institution is not the artist, they were the | artists' sponsor and commissioned the work. | trasz wrote: | Sure, but in this case this could be easily avoided by | turning it into something useful to society, eg a museum. | virtualritz wrote: | Not disagreeing with your point. However: | | > The Pyramids of Egypt are grand structures but accomplished | with slave labor | | That theory is not well supported any more as of ca. 2010.[1] | | [1] see Construction/Workforce in | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza | akharris wrote: | There's a wonderful interview with the photographer for this | piece, Tomas van Houtryve, on Leica's blog: https://leica- | camera.blog/2022/05/09/rebuilding-notre-dame/. | jacquesm wrote: | Those photos are really beautiful. | cb7 wrote: | chki wrote: | Just to make this clear to everybody: there are no signs at all | that this fire was arson. There are multiple explanations for | the cause of the fire involving the construction site and some | sort of negligence, which seem highly likely to be true. | seszett wrote: | And the "wave" was a handful of unrelated fires that happened | near churches (not even in churches for most of them) over a | few years and were mounted as a "wave of arson" by extreme- | right websites during the height of Syrian refugees influx. | | The original website that had a map of these events (that you | had to look up yourself to see they amounted to nothing) | isn't even online anymore as far as I can see, now this false | fact is just a urban legend with a life of its own. | namecheapTA wrote: | galgot wrote: | I've seen news of churches (Catholic, as most Churches are | in France) been set on fire maybe 2 or 3 times in the news | here in France, that was a while ago... Not seen any news | like that recently. Are there any sources about the true | numbers of these arson fires ? | | I had the same conversation with someone living in the US | at the time of the Notre-Dame fire, I couldn't come with | more than 2 or 3 occurrences reported in the French press | naming specifics cases with places names and all, while he, | in the US would provide me with dozen of press reports of | "Churches are burnings by numbers in France !" type of | titles ... Many from a very specific side of the political | spectrum. | User23 wrote: | Also the ashes weren't even cold, heck the fire was still | burning, when the prestige media that serves as most | people's sole epistemological authority pronounced that the | fire was absolutely assuredly accidental. | | I recall being particularly impressed with the speed and | rigor of that investigation. | selimthegrim wrote: | Do you have even the tiniest shred of circumstantial evidence | this was intentional? | googlryas wrote: | Besides for lack of evidence of arson and evidence of negligent | construction practices, how exactly do you guess one could root | out anti-church extremists? | dreen wrote: | Rebuilding "as it was", despite calls for modernization, is also | something that happened after the Great Fire of London in 1666. | Especially Christopher Wren, one of the most famous architects of | XVII century, was supposedly very upset that his plan for a | concentric ring-like city plan was rejected, in favour of | rebuilding the city with all its tangled medieval street plan. | owoskdhrkr wrote: | 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. | dreen wrote: | Thanks, never saw the plan just heard an anecdote. And it's | interesting to learn London landlords could be as "assertive" | in XVII century as they are now | [deleted] | bombela wrote: | This website is cancer. Randomly switch to a different article. | And hijack the history in a loop. | pwg wrote: | Using Ublock Origin to block all the javascript allows the | article to be read, without random switches or history | hijacking. | euroclydon wrote: | I never knew what a flying buttress was. They sure are ugly. | Makes the building look like a group of giant spiders. | giraffe_lady wrote: | 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. | VHRanger wrote: | 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 | throw0101a wrote: | Meta: What structures built today will be thought | important/sacred/useful enough to be kept around for several | hundred years? | | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris | bobthepanda wrote: | A lot of modern buildings are rebar, and in practice rebar | seems to have a lifespan of around 100 years. | Barrin92 wrote: | 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. | mongol wrote: | Pentagon. | wongarsu wrote: | 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 Familia [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 | rob74 wrote: | The Sagrada Familia was my first thought too. Definitely | worth a visit! I think it very much carries on the spirit of | Gothic cathedrals. Those builders used the best construction | techniques of their time to create breathtaking buildings, | and Gaudi did the same with the techniques of his time (and | those who picked up the work after he died did the same). The | interior with the tree-like branching columns is especially | impressive... | wongarsu wrote: | 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. | peterpost2 wrote: | First one that comes to my mind is the Chernobyl sacrophage. | GloriousKoji wrote: | The ones that brings in all the tourists and money? | ganbatekudasai wrote: | Right. The question being discussed is which ones that will | be. | kakwa_ wrote: | Well, that's only a recent development (compared to the life | span of these historical buildings). | | A lot of these Cathedrals managed to survive long period of | neglect with minimal to no maintenance. | | There is a bit of survivor bias in there, but it's also a | testament to the durability of these buildings. | blocked_again wrote: | 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. | munk-a wrote: | 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. | bobthepanda wrote: | Yes and no. | | Some sites of historical significance were intentionally | destroyed, particularly if the memory is painful. Most | notably it has been very hard to preserve what remains of the | Berlin Wall as a memorial. | squirtle24 wrote: | 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... | avemg wrote: | We'll never know. That's for future generations to decide! | eCa wrote: | 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. | em-bee wrote: | 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... | rdl wrote: | Big dams and bridges would get my vote (Hoover, Aswan, etc.) | | Possibly launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and Boca Chica. | BurningFrog wrote: | Every single shed, gas station, and park bench in San | Francisco, for starters. | fmajid wrote: | Don't forget the historic laundromats! | arthurcolle wrote: | Any bets on what cursed specimen is inside the lead sarcophagus? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-27 23:00 UTC)