The Easel

Archives: Bradley Stephens

10th December 2024

What the Notre Dame Restoration Says About France’s Past and its Future

Notre Dame cathedral’s restoration is “miraculous”. Luckily, key elements of the building survived the fire and a prior digital image facilitated restoration of this 19th century “reimagining of medievalism”. While traditionalists and modernisers battle over even small modernising details, workers have taken an “almost devotional” approach to the project.  One historian ascribes that to the building’s cultural status. Notre Dame is “not the most beautiful of our cathedrals. But it is the most admired”.