Notre Dame: Too big to fail
The fires of greed and avarice that torched the global economy in 2007 inspired a now familiar phrase.
Contemplating the potential ruin of the world’s financial infrastructure and its consequences, commentators deemed some of its architecture worth preserving, whatever the cost. Some banks and other financial institutions were declared ‘‘too big to fail’’.
The fear was that to lose them would fatally undermine the vast financial capital represented by those institutions and the many millions of people supported by them.
The fire that struck the Notre Dame de Paris yesterday has had a similar impact on Paris, the world’s cultural capital.
Author Victor Hugo understood its value; he called the monument ‘‘a majestic and sublime edifice’’. In his 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, he lamented the ‘‘innumerable degradations and mutilations inflicted on the venerable pile, both by the action of time and the hand of man’’.
Both time and man have mutilated our global cultural heritage in other parts of the world: the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, blown apart by religious fanatics in 2001; 6000 Tibetan monasteries destroyed since 1949; the ancient city of Aleppo devastated by fighting in 2013.
And if not by man then Mother Nature: a 2015 earthquake killed thousands of people and levelled significant temples in Nepal; a cyclone destroyed Myanmar religious sites in 2008; and another quake claimed our own Christ Church Cathedral.
These losses are felt immediately by those for whom such buildings represent a place of worship
and community, more widely in the countries in which they are found, and then further to the international interest in the history they house and the antiquities within.
The pain from the potential loss of Notre Dame was evident in the outpouring of sadness, even grief, from numerous world leaders – religious and secular – as the spire tumbled and flames devoured the cathedral.
It’s a reaction that suggests the most-visited attraction in Paris and among the most venerated in the world transcends religion.
French President Emmanuel Macron was quick to declare that Notre Dame would be rebuilt. The cathedral is ‘‘part of us’’, he told shocked countrymen and women.
We believe its family extends beyond French borders. Whether or not you adhere to Catholicism, or indeed any religion, it is impossible not to be awed by such an epic expression of human excellence in art, architecture and sheer effort.
A building started 100 years before the first Ma¯ ori set foot on our shores; a building that has withstood revolution and so many other ‘‘innumerable degradations and mutilations’’, including the march of 12 million tourists each year.
When the fire took hold, the French were part way through a refurbishing project estimated to cost NZ$260 million.
Who knows what the bill to restore the church will be now. Probably many times that figure. But it must be done, even with the help of international partners. Because Notre Dame is too big to fail.
.... it is impossible not to be awed by such an epic expression of human excellence in art, architecture and sheer effort.