With the arrow we have encountered. There is still a long way to go before the decision. But the position of the rectors of the Notre Dame Cathedral is clear: they want the arrow as it was. Identical They reject "the contemporary gesture" proposed by President Emmanuel Macron. That he has the last word, his Culture Minister recalled yesterday.
Who has expressed himself with more forcefulness is Philippe Villeneuve, chief architect of Notre-Dame, in charge of the restoration of the cathedral since before the fire, which is now six months old: "Or it is restored identically and I do, or a contemporary arrow is made and another one does it ".
Macron, the day after the fire, promised to restore the cathedral in five years. For Villeneuve, it is only possible to meet this deadline if "it is remaken identical" because "certain time" would be earned.
The Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, wanted to remove iron from the controversy: "It is not yet known if it will be a contest of ideas or architects. That is not decided, we must refine it."
But Riester also made it clear that the last word is the owner state of Notre Dame and all the temples of France built before 1905. The central administration owns the cathedrals and town halls, the churches. The Catholic Church directs the cult. But the maintenance of the stones is a matter of public heritage.
Along the same lines as the traditionalist architect, spoke yesterday Patrick Chauvet, rector of the cathedral, and Gilles Drouin, director of the Higher Institute of the Liturgy and delegate of the archbishop for the conditioning of the cathedral.
Chauvet said that "Notre-Dame should approach with humility and leave the egos apart. It is convenient to assume the tradition." Maybe I was thinking of the British Norman Foster who has imagined a glass ceiling and an arrow made of glass and stainless steel. Or the Swiss Fuksas who would use glass for both and illuminate the arrow at night.
Drouin has stated that "the jurisprudence of the State and the Church has established that when the structure of a building is modified, the affected person must be asked for an opinion."
Knowing that it is a nineteenth-century addendum imagined by Violet le Duc, author of the great restoration of Notre Dame after the degradation of the revolutionary years, we ask Drouin if does the arrow belong to the structure of the building? "Of course it is. Touching Violet le Duc's arrow is a very important decision. All his work is on its feet."
In its favor it has that the plans of Le Duc are conserved so it would not be difficult to reconstruct it in its neo-Gothic style. And also public opinion, according to polls. The Minister of Culture wanted to avoid the controversy and added that the State will listen to "the fundamental opinion" of the Church.
What everyone agrees is that the time has not yet come to decide. The public establishment that will be in charge of the works will be launched next November. It will be led by General Jean Louis Georgelin, appointed directly by Macron, and will have 40 employees.
It is ruled out to celebrate a mass in the cathedral for Christmas but the Church wishes to reopen it quickly to worship. The most immediate is to disassemble the scaffold that melted in the heat of the fire. It will be necessary to cut the bars one by one. Until this structure is dismantled and the vault "Notre Dame will not be totally safe," the minister said.
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