7 minute read
OH FU*K
It is spring again in Paris. The high windows are open and the shutters are closed to keep the late setting sun outside of the Eloïse, a fine bar. The breeze blowing through the shutters is crisp. The birds are agitatedly rearranging themselves in the tree outside and the cries of tired and lost tourist children create a dissonance with the sound of chefs yelling at incompetent garcons.
“Would you like another drink?” “No, thank you.”
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I pay the bill and begin my slightly drunken ascent up the massive wooden stairs into the still too bright evening. My research paper is due tomorrow. The green lacquered door opens before me onto Rue des Bernardins. As my foot lands on the worn cobbles a passer-by collides with me from the left at full speed. He quickly rights himself and yells some French curse in my direction as he continues running. I do not understand him. Strange, there are no tired and lost tourist children to be seen. The sound of heels hammering the paving all around me, the flashes of purples and yellows and blues of dresses and suits creates a visual blur and there is an orange glow that permeates the oddly overcast sky. Rush hour – I suppose.
I decide to walk back along the river and begin walking in its direction. I enjoy strolling alongside the books and records and rather poor artworks to be found in merchant stands as if I might buy something; listening to the odd insignificant joke of a merchant, and making polite smiles and nods to the old woman that accidentally bumped into me, too focussed on the book she is attempting to reach.
I’m a way down the street now, and the smell of smoke is lingering far longer than it normally would do from the pipe smokers of Eloïse. People are still running. What a strange sensation. I round the corne-
“Oh Fu*k.”
Notre Dame, Our Lady, has fallen.
oh fu*k
No, I’m not French, no I’m not even religious let alone catholic, and yet… and yet watching a video of the spire collapsing feels fundamentally wrong, as if it goes against the laws of the possible. Perhaps I’m simply a romantic, though the 800 million euros donated to its restoration and the influx of people posting photos of their school trips, anniversaries, and fond memories attached to the cathedral after its fall seem to suggest that I’m not alone (Block, 2019).
Not only was I mortified because of the fact that a symbol, or rather an icon of architectural history and craftsmanship was vanishing in real time before my eyes but also because of the implications of such an event. That is to say the implication that someone is going to have the opportunity, or rather the nightmare of redesigning the vaults and spire of the Notre Dame. It raises the question; how would you go about redesigning such a building?
What one realises by the occurrence of such an event is the significant symbolic weight that buildings can carry. People have attached an abstract meaning, association, and emotion to this cathedral. Similar to the ugly teddy bears that my parents have kept from their childhood, the importance of such a building, and its meaning, goes beyond its material worth. As such, regardless of the design that wins the redesign competition, it will almost certainly be a disappointment.
The problem lies in the fact that people want the Notre Dame to have not burnt down. Sadly, no architect can make that happen. And so, the challenge becomes trying to define a new series of vaults and a spire (if we even want a spire – seeing as the original design did not have one (Block, 2019).) What will be able to speak for the people of today, or at the very least for the architects of today.
In order to better understand the sensitivities of tackling such a problem I’d like to briefly try to understand three church restorations from the last couple of decades. Though indeed each of these projects, namely The Kolumba Museum, The St. Paraskeva Church, and the Baños Church, each had different functional requirements, and different levels of restoration to be done, they all have a number of things in common.
First and foremost, material choice is the driving force behind these projects’ success. And secondly, the use of light is a crucial element in church design generally, being symbolic of course of purity, and coming from the sky, or the heavens if you will. Light’s importance is in these projects emphasised masterfully. As is discussed briefly in the article Stillness in our previous edition, the use of light can be responsible for the entire emotional response a visitor has to a building.
Image 1: ”Notre-Dames de Paris, Paris, France” by Olivier Mabelly (2019) used under CC BY, flipped horizontally from original. [Photograph] Retrieved from http://flickr.com Image 2: Baños Church. (2010). BROWNMENESES [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://archdaily.com Image 3: Kolumba Museum. (2010). Peter Zumthor [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://archdaily.com Image 4: Conservation, Restoration and Adaptation of Church “St Paraskeva“, Vadinska. (2010). Todor Mihaylov, Elitsa Andreeva, Emilia Kaleva, Aleksandra [Photograph]. Retrieved from http:// archdaily.com SOURCES
- Block, I. (2019, April 23). France to launch competition to design a new spire for Notre-Dame. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https:// www.dezeen.com - Brown, C., & Meneses, P. (2015). Roof over the Walls of the Old Baños Church / BROWNMENESES. (Quintana, L. Trans.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.archdaily.com. - Cilento, K. (2010, August 6). Kolumba Museum / Peter Zumthor. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.archdaily.com
Baños Church, Christian Brown & Paola Meneses
In Christian Brown and Paola Meneses’ renovation of the Baños Church a material that otherwise is completely alien to the original organic stone forms and textures in the old walls, a transluscent polycarbonate that seems to float just above the old ruin as if demarking a place of importance (Brown & Meneses, 2015). The contrast here between the delicacy of the roof and the massive nature of the walls is exactly what heightens the user experience, and brings out these unique qualities of the old walls that are slightly diminished by the chaotic urban sprawl surrounding the building.
The use of this material also brilliantly creates a diffused light that is at once holy in nature, and again does not distract, but enhances the nature of the pre-existing structure.
Kolumba Museum Peter Zumthor Image 3 : Kolumba Museum, Peter Zumthor, Cologne
Peter Zumthor’s Kolumba Museum’s materialisation makes use of hand-crafted charcoal fired bricks which have a certain level of warmth imbued in them (Cilento, 2010). This creates a comforting neutral framework that does not detract attention away from the ruins remaining of the various buildings.
The use of these bricks also creates a rhythmic opportunity that in fact is used to let dappled light pour into the building, aiming one’s attention to the textures of the ruins as they are experienced inside and creating a harmony with the natural world beyond the interior.
I think potentially most noteworthy is the restoration of the St. Paraskeva Church. Here as much attention is paid to keeping in step with contemporary times, as is to the vernacular architecture of the surrounding urban landscape. The use of perforated Cor-ten steel compliments the warm hues of the intricate mosaic and brick work, while not offending the neighbouring buildings.
In terms of light, in the heat of the sun the perforations that seem to hover just over the old walls create polka dots of light amidst the shadows, and is a poetic interaction of the different strata of the building’s history.
In any case, what all of these works manage to achieve brilliantly is to marry the contemporary with the archaic, whilst acknowledging the sensibilities of the today. The modern additions do not scream so loudly that the story of the underlying structure cannot be heard (which I fear may be the case in some so far proposed redesigns of the Notre Dame). Rather, in their relation a kind of bittersweet tale is told of moving on, and remembering. Something I hope can be achieved in the new Notre Dame.//
Image 4: Conservation, Restoration and Adaptation of Church “St. Paraskeva“, Todor Mihaylov, Elitsa Andreeva, Emilia Kaleva, Aleksandra Vadinska, Nessebar
