Our modern public spaces may not be as loved as Notre Dame
Spikes to stop homeless people sleeping and other hostile infrastructure are unpleasant, writes Laura Waddell
For many people, Notre Dame will figure in their first trip to mainland Europe. Paris, easily reachable from the UK, has become all the more so in the last several decades with the arrival of budget flights, whether landing amid Charles de Gaulle’s 70s glamour or at the poky Beauvais, which feels that at any moment it might take off itself like a tent in a field, decanting passengers somewhere to the outer periphery of their target.
On most days, boats filled with tourists craning sun-reddened necks to one side cruise down the Seine, gliding the length of the cathedral’s gothic brickwork, flowers picturesquely spilling over the embankment. Or they jostle for a space out in front of the two towers, among those who have paid vendors for seed bags to coax pigeons onto outstretched arms, like beads on a string, for a photograph with fluttering wings.
It’s the second destination, after the Eiffel Tower of course, that many visitors associate with the city. Despite the occasional complaint of over-crowding, common to all popular tourist attractions, Tripadvisor users list it as second in satisfaction too (after the Musee D’orsay), and it looms in the backdrop when visitors exit the bookshop Shakespeare & Co, the charmingly ramshackle Parisian gateway to worlds of words, and arrive back in the hustle and bustle of the city. Distances to Paris are marked officially from the site of Notre Dame at its heart.
Like other places of worship, the iconography of Notre Dame was conceived as a “poor people’s book”, a rather blunt description for a beautiful thing. Scenes from the Bible throng its walls, inside and out, so those unable to read or
without access to books (a great many Parisians at time of construction) might understand its stories. Detailed frescos within the building which look at this stage to be mainly preserved from fire damage were grandly designed, and some literally gilded too.
Despite this, Notre Dame has not had a straightforwardly idyllic history. Revolutionaries objecting to the church’s power made the building a focus of occupation, leaving statues decapitated. There have been spats over how faithful the restoration should be to the original gothic vision, and who should pay for it. Very quickly after the fire of Monday evening, the building had been seized upon as a symbol to bait nationalist and Islamophobic conspiracies. Although not everyone has found welcome in Christianity, the purpose of any church is to entice new followers and serve the existing, and so there is reason for the building’s popular appeal and accessibility. But any architectural design with the masses in mind deserves appreciation. While tourists are awed by its majesty, Notre Dame has meant many things to Parisians over the centuries, not least pride. This sense of common ownership over the landmark is, perhaps, a bigger driver to restoration than beauty itself.
Many modern scenes in architecture do not encourage the public to feel possessive but rather pushed away or hurried through. Public spaces being cordoned off by private interests, such as festival fences blocking views of Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh last summer, seem to be increasing. Spikes to stop homeless people sleeping are no longer a new sight. We have become accustomed to this miserly, unpleasant spirit in our surroundings and everyday journeys, seen in