Iconic and Revered, Notre Dame de Paris faces an uncertain future.

October 9, 2017 – AD Editorial Team

“Broken gargoyles and fallen balustrades replaced by plastic pipes and

wooden planks. Flying buttresses darkened by pollution and eroded by rainwater.

Pinnacles propped up by beams and held together with straps.”

According to the Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris, the iconic Parisian

cathedral is in "desperate need of attention." Perhaps more concerningly, the holy

site and French national monument is also in "a worrisome state of preservation."

Built of limestone—a material notoriously susceptible to erosion—the building is in

an accelerating state of wear-and-tear, demanding renewed funding efforts and

expertise to secure its immediate and long-term future. From the lead roof to the

stone buttresses, the world-renowned gargoyles to the stained glass windows, every

inch of the structure requires differing levels of attention.

A new budget set out of by the organization breaks down in cold, hard

numbers the scope of the project at hand. At this time, a total of $110 million will be

necessary to carry out urgent, intermediate, and longer – term repairs.

Heriatge Analysis

With its inner beauty, strength, and character that manifested from its famous

gargoyles to its majestic stained glass windows and towers that stood as a symbol of

past national glory, the Notre Dame de Paris is one of the most iconic and well-

known examples of gothic architecture in France, and perhaps, in the world.

However, after almost 500 years of its completion, the fact that the cathedral was an

artistic masterpiece and engineering marvel no longer mattered. Come the early

1800s, after being heavily damaged in a revolution, the Notre Dame began gradually

crumbling. Fearing that, like so many of the city’s other Gothic structures, Notre-

Dame would soon be demolished, Victor Hugo, one of the world’s first historic

preservationists, decided to write the novel Notre-Dame de Paris, whose success

would later on invoke a public outcry to save the cathedral and commence

restoration (R. Buday, 2017). In the present, with Notre – Dame’s deterioration still

somewhat evident, a large amount of funding was allocated specifically for the long-

term preservation of one of France’s most historic buildings to ensure that its legacy

would progress still among the future generations; for Architecture is more than an

empty shell to be filled—it is a story to be told.