The spire of Notre Dame was recently returned to its original position, following the fire of 2019, meaning the spectre of major architectural ‘innovations’ as threatened during the restoration of the building seems to be receding. However, the Archbishop of Paris, Msgr. Laurent Ulrich, has told the French president that he would like to see contemporary stained-glass windows incorporated into the cathedral as it is rebuilt.
RTL reports that the Archbishop of Paris sent a letter to Emmanuel Macron, explaining he would like to have a series of six contemporary stained-glass windows installed in one of the nave’s side chapels.
As an original commission, the new installation would mean, according to the archbishop, that “the return to the Cathedral cannot take place without leaving a trace of this event in the restored building.” (This would be distinct from the “architectural gesture” that President Macron once suggested as a replacement for the cathedral’s spire.)
The archbishop is proposing a competition for contemporary artists with the winners’ design for modern stained-glass windows replacing their 19th-century predecessors. These, like the spire, were designed by the Second Empire architect Viollet-le-Duc. The replaced windows are ‘grisailles,’ which the archbishop would like to exhibit in a cathedral museum, a project that is still underway. Msgr. Ulrich has come out in favour of stained-glass windows that are certainly contemporary in style, but also “figurative,” preserving a part of traditional Christian art “that meditates on faces and figures,” in his own words. A similar competitive selection process was used previously to recruit the cabinet-makers responsible for creating the cathedral’s new liturgical furniture.
The request was received by the Élysée Palace to be considered.
Emmanuel Macron was due to visit the site on Friday, December 8th, exactly one year before the building is due to reopen. The occasion was the French president’s opportunity to give his opinion on the archbishop’s request and also pay tribute to General Jean-Louis Georgelin, who died recently and energetically coordinated the reconstruction of the cathedral. His name is to be engraved on the wood of the new spire currently being installed.
During his visit to the building site Macron said he accepted the archbishop’s suggestion and confirmed the launch of a competition for the creation of six contemporary stained glass windows that will bring “the mark of the 21st century” to the monument. A similar proposal had been made in 2020 but refused at the time in the name of the Venice Convention, which made it absolutely impossible to remove these stained glass windows and replace them with modern works, according to the culture minister of the time, Roselyne Bachelot. Three years later, it seems that the Venice Convention is no longer seen as a decisive obstacle. The name of the artist should be known by the end of the winter.
These latest developments confirm, if confirmation were needed, that the main threat of disfigurement to the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris comes not from the French state but from the initiatives of the diocese, as shown by the questionable choices of liturgical furnishings to be installed in the renovated church made a few months ago. The question is whether the ‘figurative’ character advocated by the archbishop will actually be respected in a style that does not distort the overall harmony of the building.
