Category: Notre Dame

France to hold an international competition for the redesign of Notre Dame’s iconic spire

France will hold a competition among international architects to design a new spire for the Notre Dame Cathedral after the one atop the famed church collapsed in this week’s fire, the country’s prime minister said.
Edouard Philippe said Wednesday that officials will consider whether the new spire should replicate the one that fell in Monday’s blaze or have its own original design.

“This is obviously a huge challenge, a historic responsibility,” Philippe said. “Should we rebuild the spire envisaged and built by Viollet-le-Duc under the same conditions … (or) give Notre Dame a new spire adapted to the technologies and the challenges of our times?”

The destroyed 300-foot spire was not an original piece on the medieval cathedral. It was designed and built by Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc during his 19th-century restoration.

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French Billionaires Fall Over Each Other To Pay For Notre Dame Rebuild

The owner of Louis Vuitton faces off against the owner of Saint Laurent over who will do more to help the iconic French cathedral//Thomas AdamsonAssociated Press via CP
PARIS — Two of France’s richest men, long locked in a very public rivalry, are once again pitted against each other — this time over flashy and competing donations to rebuild Notre Dame.

Billionaire luxury tycoons — Bernard Arnault, 70, and Francois Pinault, 82 — are among France’s fiercest business competitors and patrons.

On Tuesday, their rivalry reached dramatic heights

Too much, too young? Mayor could become ... theguardian.com

Pete Buttigieg’s message to France sends social media into a tizzy

Quipped one fan: “Why is there even an election for goodness sake. Just give him the damn job and I’m Canadian.”
The 37-year-old Indiana mayor — a graduate of Harvard and Oxford universities, Rhodes Scholar, Afghanistan veteran and musician — sent social media ablaze Monday night when he delivered a touching message to the people of France in the wake of the Notre Dame blaze — in fluent French.

English and French are just two of seven languages that Buttigieg speaks.

“To the people of France, I would like to say that Notre Dame cathedral was like a gift to the human species,” the Democrat told a reporter from the French station BFM TV at a fundraiser in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

“We share the pain, but we also thank you for this gift to civilization.”