On the Gothic Edits of Notre Dame de Paris

Abstract:In the immediate aftermath of the devastating fire that ravaged Notre-Dame de Paris on April 15–16, 2019, the French government announced a competition for the reconstruction of the cathedral’s spire. This article examines several preliminary plans from architects and designers responding to the April 17 call for proposals and the notable effect of digital technologies in the realization of all the designs. Through a comparison of these plans to the restorations made by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc to the church in the middle of the nineteenth century, approaches to the problematic concept of the Gothic style are emphasized. In this analysis, attention is placed on the surprising theoretical similarities between notions of the Gothic and the digital despite their drastically different historical origins as ideas. Brought together, the need for clarification of the conceptual significance of the future, digitally-enabled Gothic edit for Notre-Dame de Paris emerges as an essential aspect of the building’s preservation as a historic monument. Given the sensibilities of our digital age of permanent impermanence, idealism, and the possibility of the forever future edit, the potential reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris offers unbounded architectural temptations and the possibilities of every Gothic variety that require tempering.