Foreign Property News | Posted by Zarni Kyaw
As Notre-Dame’s spire tumbled from its ancient roof on Tuesday morning Australian-time, French president Emmanuel Macron tweeted he was witnessing “part of us burn”.
Soon thereafter, Macron vowed to rebuild the cathedral, promising an ambitious five-year timeline for its reconstruction in an earnest, televised, national address.
And while the five-year deadline was met with some skepticism, France has now opened a global architectural competition for the spire’s redesign.
Prime Minister Édouard Philippe made the announcement on Wednesday.
“The international competition will allow us to ask the question of whether we should even recreate the spire as it was conceived by Viollet-le-Duc,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told reporters.
As is often the case in the evolution of heritage, we should endow Notre-Dame with a new spire.”
Prime minister Philippe added that the competition would determine whether the spire would be a recreation or a new design “adapted to the techniques and the challenges of our era”.
While the Notre-Dame’s construction began in the 12th century and the 93-metre spire was only added in the mid-1800s.
Ref: Property Report
