{"id":22537,"date":"2019-04-30T16:15:11","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T15:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=22537"},"modified":"2019-04-29T19:13:11","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T18:13:11","slug":"an-ihbc-view-of-notre-dame-a-historical-take-on-the-future-of-a-damaged-heritage-resource-and-icon-from-the-ihbcs-former-membership-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=22537","title":{"rendered":"An IHBC view of Notre Dame: A historical take on the future of a damaged heritage resource and icon, from the IHBC\u2019s former Membership Secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Notre_Dame_BBC_website_190419.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-22423\" src=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Notre_Dame_BBC_website_190419.png\" alt=\"building and fire\" width=\"400\" height=\"614\" \/><\/a>The IHBC asked former Membership Secretary Paul Butler for a take on some critical and historical issues around the modern response to Notre Dame, in the hope they will inform topical discussions across our membership as we approach the IHBC\u2019s 2019 Nottingham School \u2013 \u2018<em>Heritage risk and resilience<\/em>\u2019 in July.<\/h3>\n<h3>Comments, thoughts, offers and suggestions should be sent to our new national office support officer, Michael Netter, at <a href=\"mailto:services@ihbc.org.uk\">services@ihbc.org.uk<\/a><\/h3>\n<h6><em>image: BBC website<\/em><\/h6>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Paul Butler writes:<\/p>\n<p>It looks as if there will be an international competition to redesign the spire at Notre Dame:<\/p>\n<p>Read the article in the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global\/2019\/apr\/17\/france-announces-architecture-competition-rebuild-notre-dames-spire.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Guardian<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Prime Minister \u00c9douard Philippe said, &#8216;the result of the competition would be to give the 850-year-old building \u2018a spire suited to the techniques and challenges of our time&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Our architects are setting out their stalls:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Norman Foster: \u2018In every case [of major repair\/rebuilding], the replacement used the most advanced building technology of the age \u2013 it never replicated the original\u2019<\/li>\n<li>Robert Adam: \u2018They should do what they did at York [Minster, which suffered a similar fire in 1984] and put it back so that people wouldn\u2019t actually notice.\u2019<\/li>\n<li>The present Surveyor to the Fabric at Westminster Abbey, Ptolemy Dean: \u2018To me, it\u2019s a slightly deeper question than putting something in and making it a statement of modern thought; I think it\u2019s also tied to the functionality of that roof void. You could make something rather amazing in there that explains the whole story of the fire and reveals something about the Gothic vaults\u2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This last is perhaps slightly analogous (though Ptolemy Dean didn\u2019t say so!) to the new Jubilee gallery in the east triforium at Westminster Abbey &#8211; for background see the <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=18601\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IHBC NewsBlogs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, however, our Notre Dame is Westminster Abbey: an extraordinary Gothic building which symbolises so much of British life and which took centuries to reach its current built form.\u00a0 And at various times in its life there have been major debates about how it could be completed or changed.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most intense periods of debate was in the early 18th century and the key personnel were Wren and Hawksmoor.\u00a0 Wren had ambitious plans for a new tower and spire.\u00a0 Despite his classical inclinations, he wanted his designs \u2018to agree with the original scheme of the old Architect, without any modern Mixtures to shew my own Inventions\u2019 (quoted in Gordon Higgot, \u2018Sir Christopher Wren\u2019s failed project for a crossing tower and spire at Westminster Abbey, 1713 \u2013 25\u2019, <em>The Burlington Magazine<\/em> , Vol 161 January 2019, pp 44 \u2013 57).<\/p>\n<p>When Hawksmoor took over as Surveyor of the Fabric in 1723, Wren\u2019s plans were abandoned, partly because they may well have been structurally unsound.\u00a0 What he did do however was to complete the west end of the abbey (unfinished at the time of the Dissolution of Monasteries).\u00a0 His solution:\u00a0 twin towers clearly based on medieval precedents but also clearly of their time.\u00a0 This was his last commission and arguably his \u2018greatest single achievement as an architect\u2019 (Higgott again).<\/p>\n<p>May the same be said of whichever architect wins the commission for the new spire at Notre Dame.<\/p>\n<p>For more background on ongoing reports see:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=22422\">IHBC Nottingham 2019 \u2013 \u2018Perspectives to take to School\u2019: Notre Dame, the story so far\u2026<\/a> and<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=22383\">IHBC offers sympathies to Paris \u2013 and Europe and beyond \u2013 on Notre Dame fire, as scale of damage continues under review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The IHBC asked former Membership Secretary Paul Butler for a take on some critical and historical issues around the modern response to Notre Dame, in the hope they will inform topical discussions across our membership as we approach the IHBC\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=22537\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ihbc-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22538,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22537\/revisions\/22538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}