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Author Topic: Notre-Dame Fire  (Read 4898 times)

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Notre-Dame Fire
« on: April 15, 2019, 04:25:04 pm »

My condolences to our French friends.

I am crying as I am writing this. I am not Catholic, I am not even religious, but the cultural and historic loss is enormous. It survived 850 years.

Back in 2010, I took this photo inside the cathedral:

Peter McLennan

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2019, 04:43:13 pm »

I've been glued to my television for the last few hours.  There are no words to describe this horrific event.

Fortunately, so far, no injuries.

Edit: one firefighter seriously injured.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2019, 05:37:41 pm by Peter McLennan »
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LesPalenik

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2019, 06:40:06 pm »

The most incredible thing is that something like this can happen now. 850 years of constant upheavals, wars, all kinds of calamities, and Notre Dame survived it all. It should have lasted another 850 years. Now, the only thing left is to learn why this happened.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2019, 07:31:28 pm »

The most incredible thing is that something like this can happen now..l

Which got me thinking, what exactly is the fire fighting strategy for tall buildings? The first thing that came to my lauman’s mind is helicopters. We have military cargo helicopters, capable of carrying 20-25 metric tons. Could they be transformed into carrying water or other fire-fighting material? We have planes with bigger capacities, but I doubt they are precise enough for relatively small footprint in densely populated civilian areas.

LesPalenik

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2019, 07:42:41 pm »

Apparently, they wanted to avoid dropping lot of water / weight on the cathedral for fear of collapsing.
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amolitor

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2019, 08:01:05 pm »

I believe Notre-Dame de Paris has suffered, if not quite this much damage, extensive damage in the past. As long as the bones of the building, the massive stoneworks, remain more or less intact the building will continue. These things are not cast in amber, but living, breathing, structures which have historically been left to rot, revived, rebuilt, reimagined, and renovated over and over.
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kers

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #6 on: April 16, 2019, 06:38:25 am »

Fires too often happen during (roof) repairs - Would be wise to have always some firemen around during the works- at least for monuments like these.
Too late for the Notre Dame, but at least there is enough support for the rebuild. Hopefully the injured fireman recovers.
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Paulo Bizarro

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #8 on: April 16, 2019, 09:34:27 am »

The roof was from the XIX century I think, made of wood. The stained glass windows were from the 1500's or so? The cathedral needed much restoration during the 1800's, due to the ruinous condition it was in. Several works of art, thankfully, had been removed, on account of the ongoing works...

Krug

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2019, 11:38:19 am »

One of the most worrying  things about this tragedy - for all of us and not just the French - is that it follows a series of such occurrences .  York Minster, Windsor Castle, the Glasgow School of Art (famous Scottish architect/designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh's masterpiece) twice, and no doubt others, each of which was in process of significant repair and renovation at the time and the credible causes appear to have been human accident during that work. I hesitate to draw sweeping conclusions but wonder what safeguards in addition to what at the time was considered sufficient would have been required to prevent or at least ameliorate the damage. None of my examples are quite so devastating as the damage to Notre Dame but we can scarce afford any such heritage loss and whatever extra costs might be required they would be small in financial and loss of originality in comparison to the costs subsequently incurred.
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OmerV

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #10 on: April 16, 2019, 12:30:47 pm »

It is interesting that the loss is considered mostly cultural, but little is said of the meaning to Catholics. Yes, the French were historically Catholic, but are now fairly diverse in faiths. So now Notre-Dame is more important as a cultural and tourism monument than as its origin of a place of worship.

jeremyrh

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #11 on: April 17, 2019, 03:56:17 am »

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rabanito

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #12 on: April 17, 2019, 05:49:50 am »

It is interesting that the loss is considered mostly cultural, but little is said of the meaning to Catholics. Yes, the French were historically Catholic, but are now fairly diverse in faiths. So now Notre-Dame is more important as a cultural and tourism monument than as its origin of a place of worship.

And historical
I don't know how many people worship there.
As AFAIK any church would do exactly the same
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #13 on: April 17, 2019, 09:29:03 am »

... As AFAIK any church would do exactly the same

Do what?

OmerV

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #14 on: April 17, 2019, 10:52:52 am »

And historical
I don't know how many people worship there.
As AFAIK any church would do exactly the same

Ross Douthat wrote a thoughtful piece on what the destruction might mean to Catholics. As he is Catholic, it is clear Notre-Dame is still significant to the faith.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/opinion/notre-dame-fire-catholic-church.html

PS The article may require a subscription.

RSL

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #15 on: April 17, 2019, 11:14:32 am »

Wonder if the hunchback found temporary quarters.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #16 on: April 17, 2019, 11:25:26 am »

Wonder if the hunchback found temporary quarters.

If you had to ask:

stamper

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #17 on: April 17, 2019, 12:09:54 pm »

Can't help but think that a re-build will end up looking like a Disney theme park. The money would be better spent helping starving people in the world?

LesPalenik

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #18 on: April 17, 2019, 01:13:19 pm »

Can't help but think that a re-build will end up looking like a Disney theme park. The money would be better spent helping starving people in the world?

or farm out the construction to Chinese. They are very fast and efficient in construction of super large projects.
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Ivo_B

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Re: Notre-Dame Fire
« Reply #19 on: April 17, 2019, 01:38:33 pm »

It is a sad story, if it happened in my town of birth, I would be very shocked, no doubt. On the other hand, if Macron is smart, it could help him to distract the crowd from his political difficulties.

And let’s be fair, It’s weird to see the same rich family doing everything to escape to pay their taxes now pulling the wallet to donate 200 million euro’s and more.

Where are those big shots when a real human catastrophe happens? With real victims? Not a only a molested wooden contraption laid in ashes.

Is there a contemporary Hundertwasser, or even Gaudi? Would be interesting to follow the hysteria around the design of the renovation.

Maybe they can ask Calatrava.

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