The “Disney” restoration of Notre-Dame divides France. A hundred intellectuals and cultural personalities have signed a petition, published at the same time on Le Figaro come on The Art Tribune, against the redevelopment project of the cathedral of Notre-Dame. The project concerns the interior of the cathedral, which, moreover, were largely spared from the disastrous fire that devastated the roofs of the building on 15 April 2019 and will be officially presented today, 9 December, at the headquarters of the National Commission for Heritage and Architecture (CNPA), and will mainly concern the furnishings (there will be contemporary installations), the lighting system that will be rethought and will see the use of projections, the visit path. The project, drawn up by the Archdiocese of Paris under the direction of Gilles Drouin, director of theInstitute superior of liturgy of the Catholic Institute of Paris, it will have to be approved by the CNPA. But all the French newspapers, in recent days, predicted that it would cause a lot of discussion, since the project of Drouin’s team includes radical and questionable changes: for example, the installation of a new baptismal font in the center of the nave and the installation of contemporary works of art in the side aisles (this particular intervention raised more than one eyebrow: «it’s disrespectful!»).
The petition
The resurrection of the cathedral, the petitioners write in their petition, “is seriously compromised by a project to enhance the interior of the monument. The diocese of Paris wants to exploit the restoration project to transform the interior of Notre-Dame into a project that completely changes the furnishings and the liturgical space. He therefore believes that the destruction of the fire is an opportunity to transform the visitor’s understanding of the monument, even if it is limited to the roof and spire and has not destroyed any of the heritage inside ». The j’accuse continues: «These changes concern the furnishings, the lighting and the visit itinerary. The authors of this project try to set up another path, another experience of the monument, even if Notre-Dame already offers a path. To give just one example, the organization designed by Viollet-le-Duc is based on a principle of gradation of spaces that already existed at the end of the Middle Ages and which he restored. The first chapels have a basic decoration to allow a gradual ascent towards the splendor of the choir. And so on. Everything has been carefully thought out and calibrated ».
The “Disney” revolution
What the Archdiocese of Paris would like, the signatories explain, «reduces to nothing the concept patiently developed by Viollet-le-Duc. The project involves the installation of removable benches, lighting that changes according to the seasons, video projections on the walls, or the same fashionable (and therefore already terribly out of date) mediation devices that are found in all “immersive” cultural projects where very often stupidity competes with kitsch. On the contrary, we must respect the work of Viollet-le-Duc and that of the artists and artisans who worked to offer us this jewel: we simply respect the principles of the heritage of a historical monument “.
Via the lights, the murals, the interactive installations
Lights, sounds, murals, interactive and immersive installations: two years after the fire, the restoration projects of the Parisian cathedral ignite the controversy against “politically correct”. The works under accusation will affect different parts of the cathedral: chapels, stained glass windows, organ and of course the nineteenth-century spire, the arguments of those who would like a modernization of Notre-Dame arise from the latter. Maurice Culot, an architect and critic based in Paris, says that “What they are proposing to do at Notre-Dame would never be done at Westminster Abbey or St. Peter’s in Rome. It is a kind of theme park and very childish and banal given the grandeur of the place ». From the details that have emerged so far in a report by Daily Telegraph, the plans for the restoration of the interiors return a sort of path unfolded through themed chapels (among which there will be a particular focus on Asia and Africa and another on the ecological theme), projections in various languages, murals and light and sound effects which will vary according to the liturgical form in order to create “emotional spaces”. A more inclusive, accessible and politically correct Notre-Dame. A “disneyfication” whose objective, in the opinion of Father Drouin, would be to evangelize tourists of non-Catholic faith but which in the eyes of those who have seen the sketches appears as an attempt to empty the monument of its connotation and strength spiritual in favor of ephemeral and spectacularized tourism ». We are in the madness of politically correct. They want to make Notre-Dame an experimental liturgical exhibition room that does not exist anywhere else – intellectuals rise with studios overlooking the cathedral – it should instead be a point of reference, where the slightest change must be treated with the utmost prudence “. We will have to wait to know the results of this proposal, which will be presented together with the others to the National Commission for the heritage and architecture of France in the coming days.