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f13.net General Forums => Serious Business => Topic started by: Khaldun on April 15, 2019, 01:50:39 PM



Title: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Khaldun on April 15, 2019, 01:50:39 PM
So awful and sad. Looks like most of the artwork and relics inside were saved. Coverage makes it sound like there's still a chance that the entire north tower will collapse completely.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Polysorbate80 on April 15, 2019, 03:19:12 PM
Are the rose windows gone?  :heartbreak:


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Samwise on April 15, 2019, 03:38:39 PM
Latest story is that the towers have been saved.  The upper rose windows melted; no confirmation on the lower ones but I wouldn't hold out much hope.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: calapine on April 15, 2019, 03:50:16 PM
The altar from the inside:

(https://i.imgur.com/rcmi3nBh.jpg)

Mich bettet than I hoped for.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Khaldun on April 15, 2019, 04:07:35 PM
Yeah.

The complicated thing that most historians know is that most structures people think are really really old are 19th Century re-creations of structures that burned. Or sometimes mid-20th Century re-creations. Notre Dame had some newer things on it (the spire) but some of what was in there was genuinely old, old, old. Just hard to watch.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Brolan on April 15, 2019, 04:32:57 PM
We were just there in 2016 and this was hard to watch on TV.  Genuinely surprised at how good it looks in the picture.  Flames were huge at the peak of the fire.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: HaemishM on April 15, 2019, 08:39:59 PM
Most of the experts I saw on CNN tonight were all very optimistic based on that photograph calapine posted.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: calapine on April 16, 2019, 03:13:38 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/Ck6i0dH.jpg)

Wow.  :heartbreak: :heartbreak:


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Khaldun on April 16, 2019, 07:09:20 AM
Some sort of weird forced perspective there?


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: calapine on April 16, 2019, 07:18:14 AM
I guess. Also Notre Dame is only 1/4 of the height of Eiffel Tower. 69 vs 300 metre.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Sky on April 16, 2019, 08:04:59 AM
How to tell if your Facebook friends wildly overreact when presented with little initial information or perspective.

I mean, this event sucks for sure.

But holy shit, man.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Sir T on April 16, 2019, 08:45:10 AM
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D4OId-pUIAEM7f2.jpg)

The sad thing is, even though they are saying the stone of the building will remain what actually stands will have to be gutted. Smoke damage will be everywhere, and they will have to clean out everything to get rid of the smell. If they rebuild it, it just wont be the same. They will have to make compromises, the low build contractors will cut corners, the new wood just won't have the smell of the centuries old wood.

I've never been there, but its gone. Sad to think about.

I am reminded thogh of a Story. My first girlfriend was German, and when I was over we visited Cologne Cathedral. This massive pile of rock in the Middle of Cologne. And when I was looking at it I was reminded of the fact you ca se the tracts of WW2 Allied bombers through the city, every street has new constuction and old buildings.

So I said out loud "how did they MISS this thing?"

She grinned at me and said "They didn't. They had guys on the roof kicking off the bombs!"


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: calapine on April 16, 2019, 09:59:50 AM
Terrible but could have been even worse.

And even buildings as old as these change. As mentioned the roof that burned down is "only" 200 years old. It was also damaged during the French revolution. Theseus cathedral.

BTW, one can rebuild anything.

Frauenkirche in Dresden, 1965 and 2010:

 (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Fotothek_df_ps_0000348_Ruine_der_Frauenkirche_gegen_Rathausturm.jpg)(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/100130_150006_Dresden_Frauenkirche_winter_blue_sky-2.jpg/405px-100130_150006_Dresden_Frauenkirche_winter_blue_sky-2.jpg)

Edit: Funny to think that in 100 years the great fire of 2019 will just be another item in the long history of Notre Dame.

Edit2: Also SirT your gf's story sounded like bullshit but wikipedia says they were indeed staff postitoned in and on(!) the cathedral ready to put out fires caused by fire bombs. Huh.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Mandella on April 16, 2019, 10:19:16 AM
I'm with Calapine on this one. I am glad that no one was killed (as far as I know) and most of the art was saved, but old buildings burn and get rebuilt. And I do think the French will spare no expense or expertise to make sure it is rebuilt right.

And if they had lost the relics, I am sure a quick trip down to the salvage store would find plenty of old wood and nails that would be just as authentic as the True Cross pieces they have there....

 :grin:


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Sir T on April 16, 2019, 10:37:18 AM
Ya, We used to joke when I was training to be a Priest that there are enough pieces of the True Cross to build a fairly good sized house  :grin:

But ya, those Dresden pictures are amazing. Thanks for posting them Calapine.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Sky on April 16, 2019, 11:56:23 AM
Forgot to mention the true tards who are saying it's as bad as 9/11.

They can truly go fuck themselves in their perspective-less nethers.

There is a cool album of vintage gargoyle and chimera pics making the FB rounds, at least.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: TheWalrus on April 16, 2019, 12:21:06 PM
Is the Church going to be able to find the money to rebuild? Is there a Gofundme?


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: RhyssaFireheart on April 16, 2019, 12:41:27 PM
Is the Church going to be able to find the money to rebuild? Is there a Gofundme?

Apparently, the Roman Catholic church doesn't own any of the buildings in France.  Notre Dame is owned by the French Ministry of Culture so the government will be doing the rebuilding.  Wiki info (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris#Ownership).


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Polysorbate80 on April 16, 2019, 12:57:43 PM
There’s been several hundred million pledged already from some very wealthy sources.  As to how much it will take, who knows yet.  I heard the renovations it already needed before the fire were going to cost 180 million (not sure dollars or euros)


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Brolan on April 16, 2019, 12:58:59 PM
According to US Today 700 million has been pledged.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Sir T on April 16, 2019, 01:07:50 PM
(https://scontent.fhou1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/57072649_2423895337621765_28395596456919040_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&_nc_oc=AQl5b7Ndp6PunEtULU7xblb_aPgZJ8mZY74czaTJXVPYLbUB4PxGZuyEnaEVeazy4Yo&_nc_ht=scontent.fhou1-1.fna&oh=dd062169a0e559a2402f84b2fbe91a48&oe=5D2F1796)

Bad, but could have been worse.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Samwise on April 16, 2019, 01:25:04 PM
TBH it's pretty badass that the stone ceilings held up like they were supposed to.  Kudos to those medieval engineers.   :drill:

(edit)

Also here's food for thought: it's not possible to replace the wooden beams because France literally does not have forests that old any more (they cut them all down).  If they'd replanted (and preserved) the forest they harvested to build Notre Dame, it would have regrown twice over by now.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Khaldun on April 16, 2019, 03:28:13 PM
It really is not gone.

I was so sad seeing the images, but...

So many buildings people *think* are old and unchanged are reconstructions of buildings that burned. Most of the castles you see in Japan are Meiji-era rebuildings of old burned castles. Fire is the fate of so many human structures. The ones that don't burn fall down instead--sometimes suddenly, sometimes gradually.

Any old building is like the ship of Theseus--parts of it have been replaced over time to the point that it's really not the old building as it was. Old paintings, old artifacts--nothing we build lasts nearly as long as we think it does.

Notre Dame is an expecially good example--it was almost a ruin before Hugo wrote Hunchback. The romantic Notre Dame we love so much is as much a 19th Century building as a 13th Century one.

But we--or at least I--do love it. Did and do. I will be glad to have it back; I was heart-broken to see it fallen so low.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Polysorbate80 on April 16, 2019, 04:28:33 PM
It’s an oddly bittersweet sort of feeling.  One can rebuild, but no matter how faithful the restoration, it will inevitably have its variances due to materials, artisanry, what have you.  So how much do we try?

Given that no recreation can ever be quite the same as the original, the question in my mind at such times is how much of the old does one recreate out of faithfulness, and how much is given over to acknowledging the loss and giving the architects and artists a chance to speak to their own feelings and creativity about the history and purpose of the space?  You can’t quite get the past back but you can embrace it at let it guide you forward.

Architecture at its heart is about bringing people together, combining what has been, what is, and what we hope for.



Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: justdave on April 16, 2019, 06:18:53 PM
Shit like this is why I really appreciate things like kintsugi, which actually acknowledge the lifespan of an object, and that the story of what's happened to it is often at least as important as how it was originally made, if not more so. The whole notion of human edifice as this immobile, unchanging thing in the western world in defiance of all logic gets us things like brexit. Though, I guess the eastern acknowledgement of chaos and the like gets us tentacle porn and subway groping. It's always a trade-off, I suppose.

Lacking any religious impulse whatsoever, I find the desire to rebuild it at all instead of clearing it out and shitting down a new glass pyramid instead to be reassuring. Kind of a dick-wave in the face of time.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Samwise on April 16, 2019, 06:24:08 PM
Kind of a dick-wave in the face of time.

This neatly sums up my general impulse to preserve, restore, and even rebuild old things.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Khaldun on April 16, 2019, 06:50:50 PM
I just hate being naive about preservation.

Colonial Williamsburg in the US is a good example of that for me. Tons of well-meaning white people in the 1970s and 1980s went there thinking: this is the way it was, this is the past, these are the old buildings. Read the fine print: the buildings are at least partially reconstructions. There's no slavery here (there wasn't until the late 1980s/early 1990s, when they acknowledge that this was giving people the wrong idea that this was a bunch of yeoman white people doing crafts). There's no shit from animals running in the streets. There's fucking lawns, something that didn't show up until so much later. Etc.

But places that mean something mean something. I kind of miss old Times Square, even, despite it being dirty, unpleasant and dangerous, because it was also real and unplanned.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Polysorbate80 on April 16, 2019, 07:02:31 PM
Our past is at least always part fiction, what we tell ourselves that we’re at least sort of comfortable with (regardless of its truth)

I don’t know that there’s a way to change that without becoming post-human


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Chimpy on April 16, 2019, 07:07:04 PM
The vaulted ceiling not totally collapsing is definitely a good sign.

And yeah, there probably isn't a cathedral in Europe (including Notre Dame) that hasn't had to do extensive rebuilds due to fire or war or whatever. Hell the spire that collapsed was less than 200 years old.

The (likely) reason this fire even started was because they were doing renovation/restoration work.



Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Polysorbate80 on April 16, 2019, 07:16:21 PM
Oh shit, there’s more than one crazy-ass motherfucker on my Facebook who’s convinced it was some Islamic terrorist plot.  Vs. the number of times I’ve fucked up something that hasn’t burned down an 800-year old building (of which there aren’t any in Idaho)


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Strazos on April 16, 2019, 09:36:50 PM
The fact that most of the vaulted ceilings, as well as the stained glass windows, survived is pretty incredible.

There will easily be more than 1 billion dollars donated towards rebuilding - it will be interesting to see what new directions are taken during reconstruction. Personally, I hope they leave as much cosmetic fire damage as possible, and also add some completely modern touches. Glass or otherwise transparent roofs or ceilings could be interesting, to allow visitors to see the guts of the place. It would also let more light in (which would need to be accounted for vis-a-vis protecting artifacts).


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: IainC on April 16, 2019, 11:17:20 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/Ck6i0dH.jpg)

Wow.  :heartbreak: :heartbreak:

This is a super fake photo. The Tour Eiffel is nowhere near that close to Notre Dame. You can see the tower from the Ile de la Cité (because you can see it from pretty much everywhere in Paris) but it doesn't loom in that way and the towers on the front of the cathedral are almost directly facing it.

(https://i.imgur.com/Q9BMtdi.jpg)


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Khaldun on April 17, 2019, 07:03:22 AM
There's some angles you can shoot with a big telephoto lens that would make the Eiffel loom a bit larger over Notre Dame, but yeah, nothing like that--it's very fake. (It's not just the size of the Eiffel, it's what seems to be at its feet, and for that matter everything else in the frame.)


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Sky on April 17, 2019, 07:05:54 AM
My favorite thus far:

(https://i.imgur.com/6tsP319.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/6tsP319.jpg)


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Sir T on April 17, 2019, 09:27:22 AM
Turns out that, four years ago, an Art historian used around a billion laser pointers to create a digital model of Notre Dame. So they have pretty accurate measurements to recreate the building if they choose to go that route. Really impressive.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/16/world/andrew-tallon-notre-dame-laser-scan-trnd/index.html


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Khaldun on April 18, 2019, 08:20:21 AM
I don't think it would be a bad thing if they add some 21st Century touches. The spire was a romantic 19th Century addition to it the last time it had to be renovated. It depends a little on what they add, of course.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Teleku on April 18, 2019, 09:11:53 AM
A twisty water slide from the top of the new spire right down into a big pool of holy water!


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: TheWalrus on April 18, 2019, 09:50:35 AM
I'd convert.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Sky on April 18, 2019, 12:07:28 PM
EXTREME BAPTISM

STARRING

JOHN "THE BAPTIST" CENA


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Sir T on April 18, 2019, 08:27:01 PM
You might laugh but the Greek Orthodox do some extreme baptism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC3GBmbP6As


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Yegolev on April 23, 2019, 08:24:57 AM
Visited the new Frauenkirche. Along with everything else in central Europe, I advise not being TOO upset at a rebuild. It's going to happen.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Cyrrex on April 29, 2019, 02:40:18 AM
The cynic in me wonders if humans are still capable of restoring things in the 21st century in a way that actually measures up to historical standards.  As has already been said, most buildings of this age have already been restored, probably numerous times, but those restores are happening in an age where they had the artistry and devotion to quality that I wonder if we still possess as a species.  In an age of Ikea and Pimp My House, do we still have the capacity to do great things like that?  We probably do, a billion dollars can get a lot done....but I can't stop my mind from going there.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Chimpy on April 29, 2019, 04:50:03 AM
France actually has a pretty large population of traditional artisans (one of the upsides of having a society where labor still has some power). The skills exist, there just are not as many people with them. The bigger issue will be people expecting this kind of work to happen quickly.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: IainC on April 29, 2019, 07:33:06 AM
There are enough thousand year-old buildings in Europe that need pretty much constant maintenance that there are still plenty of firms who can handle sympathetic restoration projects of various scales. Notre Dame is going to be one of the bigger projects (in both scope and public visibility), but there absolutely are still enough people who can fix it up better than the 19th century hacks who patched it up for Napoleon's coronation.

When Ol' Boney was crowned there, the building had in fact already been sold to scrap merchants for demolition and salvage. It was hastily tidied up for the coronation - mostly by hanging stuff over the most egregious holes. It was Victor Hugo who rescued the cathedral, by firstly making it famous in his book, and then organising a public subscription to get it fixed up and returned to its former glory.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: calapine on April 29, 2019, 10:07:48 AM
Who is Ol'Boney?


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Polysorbate80 on April 29, 2019, 12:01:21 PM
I think he means Napoleon Bonaparte but I’m not sure since I’ve been day-drinking and rewatching Game of Thrones? Everything’s a tad fuzzy  :grin:


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Khaldun on April 29, 2019, 01:39:59 PM
Napoleon, yeah.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Yegolev on May 02, 2019, 05:59:52 AM
The cynic in me wonders if humans are still capable of restoring things in the 21st century in a way that actually measures up to historical standards.  As has already been said, most buildings of this age have already been restored, probably numerous times, but those restores are happening in an age where they had the artistry and devotion to quality that I wonder if we still possess as a species.  In an age of Ikea and Pimp My House, do we still have the capacity to do great things like that?  We probably do, a billion dollars can get a lot done....but I can't stop my mind from going there.

Answer is somewhere in the middle.  See if you can dig up pictures of Frauenkirche.  There was a lot of effort made to recreate what was there, but they also realized the value of plate glass.  I'm fine with this since I think grasping tradition should be done loosely.  Else we'd still live in shit and have shit.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Khaldun on May 02, 2019, 08:16:26 AM
Restoring old structures to strictly historical standards means restoring them to structural norms that lead to buildings collapsing or failing or to buildings that catch on fire. Fire is the fate of almost all old historical structures, really, even the ones that are mostly stone. So I'm all for modest redesigns that increase structural integrity and modern fire-safety norms.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: calapine on July 17, 2019, 06:34:49 AM
A really good interactive New York Times article

"Notre-Dame came far closer to collapsing than people knew. This is how it was saved."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/16/world/europe/notre-dame.html


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Sir T on July 17, 2019, 06:53:03 AM
Restoring old structures to strictly historical standards means restoring them to structural norms that lead to buildings collapsing or failing or to buildings that catch on fire. Fire is the fate of almost all old historical structures, really, even the ones that are mostly stone. So I'm all for modest redesigns that increase structural integrity and modern fire-safety norms.


Ya, the problem with "we have to restore it to the original state" is that quite often that includes the way the original builders cut corners.


Title: Re: Notre Dame Burns
Post by: Yegolev on July 17, 2019, 07:06:56 AM
When I saw this thread resurface, I thought we were going to be telling jokes about the college football team.