Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on fire.

[Sid]

One doesn't replace a painting in a museum that needs restoration with a photograph (much cheaper, much easier to replace and maintain).
Neither should one replace an historical organ of cultural and historical importance, that isn't beyond repair with some electronics and a facade.

Most churches with a historical pipe organ do have an electronic one in the church as well, because pipe organs get easily out of tune and there are waiting lists to get them tuned again, because the old craftmanship of pipe builder, tuner, restorer has lost in popularity a lot in modern times.

 

[detrius]

Speaking of burning cathedrals and organs...

Nantes Cathedral fire: church volunteer confesses to starting blaze

Man, 39, arrested and charged with arson over fire that destroyed organ dating from 1621

www.theguardian.com

That one didn't nearly get as much attention as the Notre Dame fire. Still a tragedy, though.

It's a good thing Europe has so many of the old god shacks.

 

[Free]

Speaking of burning cathedrals and organs...

Nantes Cathedral fire: church volunteer confesses to starting blaze

Man, 39, arrested and charged with arson over fire that destroyed organ dating from 1621

www.theguardian.com

That one didn't nearly get as much attention as the Notre Dame fire. Still a tragedy, though.

It's a good thing Europe has so many of the old god shacks.

Um... Another historic cathedral on fire.

 

[Khamon]

Yeah, Sid, but the console was replaced in 63 with an electronic version, and everything up to the valves was computerized in the eighties, so it's not a stretch, at this point, to fully hybridize it with a sampling box and speakers to make the thing playable without having to use the pipes.

edit: The Nantes fire seemed to be an intentional attempt to destroy the organ. One of the caretakers confessed but we don't know what prompted it. The world gets stranger every day.

 

[Sid]

It's a good thing Europe has so many of the old god shacks.

It still is a tragedy when one is lost even if we have some of them.

 

[detrius]

Um... Another historic cathedral on fire.

We have a "Art, History and Culture" subforum?

 

[Sid]

We have a "Art, History and Culture" subforum?

Yes, we are a rich community.

 

[Free]

Saving Notre Dame chronicles effort to rebuild France’s famous cathedral

“It’s the ultimate restoration and a perfect synergy between science and history.”…

arstechnica.com

"a perfect synergy between science and history"

Ugh. I hate when marketingspeak makes its way into the common language. But the NOVA episode looks like something worth watching.

 

[detrius]

Meanwhile:

Rouen Cathedral evacuated after mystery blaze breaks out on spire

Vast resources deployed to fight blaze on the spire Notre-Dame de l'Assomption de Rouen

www.connexionfrance.com

Still got plenty left.

 

[Free]

Rouen Cathedral evacuated after mystery blaze breaks out on spire

Vast resources deployed to fight blaze on the spire Notre-Dame de l'Assomption de Rouen

www.connexionfrance.com

Still got plenty left.

Ugh.

 

[detrius]

"The Lord Giveth and Taketh Away"

 

[Free]

Looking good.

 

[Free]

A peek inside the restoration of the iconic Notre Dame cathedral

Tomas van Houtyryve’s striking photographs for National Geographic capture the restoration process.

arstechnica.com

 

[Free]

A 3 hour tour...with the visit by Macron, and some discussion (in French) of the construction work. But lots (and lots) of lovely camera work.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

I don't do three hour tours after that boat ride out of Hawaii...

 

[Free]

The best features of this tour is that you can increase the playback speed, and you can fast forward through when stuff gets too French.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Notre Dame has now officially been reopened. While the interieur is finished, construction works using scaffolding to stabilize will still take some more years.

The result is for many Parisians a mixed bag: while all are praising the artisans for their immaculate work in repairing the damages, the cathedral is not the same anymore.

Gone are the days when the inside the cathedral looked grim and dark. The artisans removed tons of grime and soot from the stone, so the cathedral looks now very pristine again. So all stone exposed is now looking much more friend and brighter than before. Which by the way is most likely not the way Notre Dame looked after it was finished, because researchers from the University of Alabama found out after the fire in 2019 it was brightly colored in the past.

What really alienates many Parisians though is the choice about the new choir stalls and other liturgical stuff. This is no faithful reconstruction of the old stuff, but very minimalistic modern designed items instead.

So many people now got the impression they are not in a church, but a modern hotel instead.

Furthermore Macron wants to get rid of some historical church windows in order to replace it with modern art. The stained glass windows are from the 19th century. There's already a petition going on with over 320K undersigners against it.

Guests of the official reopening were soon president Donald Trump and Volodymyr Selenski, who talked together during that event.