Notre Dame Cathedral has burst into flames.

[Misty Shadow 7,084]

It's always terrible for such a fate to befall a cornerstone of history. I hope for the best for the cathedral and all who are close to it. 

[AwesomeRainbow 473]

It is very sad that this happened :(

[Gestum 2,493]

Well, if they were able to rebuild The Dresden Frauenkirche after world war 2 I'm sure that they can rebuild Notre Dame.

[Zestanor 98]

Very concerning. Since it's stone-masonry, it won't be impossible to restore. But there was a lot of woodwork inside, including the ornamentation of the high altar, which took up basically the entire east end. But this isn't like the old St. Peter's which burned down just in time for the great architectural Renaissance to build it back up even better than before. Now, Church architecture is God-awful. Because it is a national treasure, I suspect they won't dare to try and "improve" anything. It might even be that the French ministry in charge of national treasures has a better sense of architecture than the French Catholic hierarchy, and in the restoration of the cathedral, they will refrain from replacing some of the modern additions, like the table altar in the middle, or the pews.

A small solace is that there are hundreds of cathedrals, basilicas, monasteries, and even parish Churches scattered throughout France which are just as significant to the people who live near them. It is a great loss to France and the Church, but there are others. There are even other cathedrals in France with Notre Dame as patroness. It's like half of them I think.

Sancta Maria Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.

Assuming the fire was caused naturally, this is a reminder that we will all die, and all of the things we do will come to nothing, even our greatest works, even the works that most closely mimic the heavenly. This should not discourage us from doing great things, but to constantly keep our mortality and the shortness of our lives in mind. We will all die.

Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Edited April 16, 2019 by Zestanor

[TBD 17,228]

1 hour ago, SparklingSwirls said:

Technically this spire wasn’t “original” anyways; it was built in the 19th century.

It’s still sad, sure, but buildings get burned down and get rebuilt all the time. I don’t think you have to completely have “the real thing” in order to appreciate it’s history...

 

Somewhat true but the value itself will still be lost, so the “ real thing” won’t be quite the same. Maybe with the new revision the new “ value” will be made in the next 80 years. But the value that made this building what it is for many years, is lost. Best not to delude ourselves to think yeah “ we can rebuild it again no big deal”. That’s great and all, but it’s like an artist who draw his first art and put a lot of value to it. Then was asks to make a copy... 50 copies later the value is no longer there.  But I’m just grateful though that all is not lost.

Edited April 16, 2019 by TBD

[SparklingSwirls 21,261]

51 minutes ago, TBD said:

Best not to delude ourselves to think yeah “ we can rebuild it again no big deal”. 

I’m not deluding myself... 

Edited April 16, 2019 by SparklingSwirls

[Twiggy 2,965]

They saved enough of it that they will be able to rebuild. Donations will be accepted from everywhere apparently. 

https://twitter.com/phl43/status/1117907022417027075

The idea that rebuilding it anew wouldn't be the same doesn't hold much water to me. The only reason we think this is because it's us living in the now. It wouldn't be the same TO US. To our descendants, different story. Much of the art was saved, and new art can be made. What is a major tragedy for us now will be seen as an interesting part of the history of Notre Dame for our posterity a few hundred years down the road. Chin up lads.

 

[Sunlight Glisten 368]

I majored in architecture in college. This is such a huge loss. It hurts me inside. One of my favorite stories one of my professors told went like this...

"During the construction of Notre dame cathedral a carpenter was working on a relief on the roof. Another worker asked why he was adding so much detail, "no one from the ground will ever see this why does it matter." The carpenter replied that God sees. 

Its a testament to what a true work of art Notre dame was. 

Famous architect mies van der rohe famously said; "God is in the details." Notre dame connected people to God for over 700 years. Humanity truly has suffered a great loss today. 

[TBD 17,228]

49 minutes ago, SparklingSwirls said:

I’m not deluding myself... 

[[Template core/front/global/commentEditLine is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]

I wasn't quite referring to you I was talking about anyone in general who believes that rebuilding broken art will restore it's value, while it's not quite true. Appearances and making new memory yes, but the old ones is dead.

[Emperor Azurailo 1,091]

This seems too unreal to be true.

I cannot believe it.

[Cash In 21,512]

It's tragic to see such a thing happen to such a valuable piece of history. I hope at least some of it will be salvaged from this unfortunate event.

[Barnstormer 112]

10 hours ago, Califorum said:

I wonder why renovating old buildings is a common cause of fires, don't they have safety precautions that would prevent this? Evidently, those precautions aren't enough to prevent such fires.

Of course they do, but accidents can always happen.

7 hours ago, TheTaZe said:

I can only imagine that this is going to fire up political tensions and people are going to blame it on terrorists or something.

People are trying, apparently, but there's also people trying to fight it and get the word out that something like that is a hoax.

[BrawnyCharger 511]

Paris without Notre Dame is like:

-London without the Tower or Big Ben

-San Francisco without the Golden Gate Bridge

-China without the Great Wall

-New York without the Statue of Liberty.

-Sydney without the Opera House.

-etc

[Lucky Bolt 34,914]

This was all over the local evening news last night, without a doubt an unfortunate tragedy. I hope they can rebuild, and I'm sure they will, at least enough. I just didn't catch WHAT exactly caused it? 

Edited April 16, 2019 by Lucky Bolt

[RaphLuna 305]

Its a sad day in the History Of Heritage.  True they can rebuild however it will never ever come close to the Real History of the Original.

This is a Tragic sad day in the faith of Christianity.

[The Recherche 29,965]

37 minutes ago, Lucky Bolt said:

This was all over the local evening news last night, without a doubt an unfortunate tragedy. I hope they can rebuild, and I'm sure they will, at least enough. I just didn't catch WHAT exactly caused it? 

It was most likely a construction accident. Due to the fact that Notre Dame Cathedral was constructed with ancient wood, it is extremely flammable, so any electric tools put it at risk of bursting into flames. There is no conclusive culprit or cause, but this is the most likely scenario.

[Frostgage 7,972]

This photograph is AMAZING

[TBD 17,228]

6 hours ago, Frostgage said:

This photograph is AMAZING

 

I saw that too and just despite of all the hellfire there's beauty that comes right after it. 

 

*ahem.....Sorry if I have place my belief on this but after seeing that,I know that God wouldn't want the whole church to go down in flame but rather have it be saved. It's gives me the symbolic meaning that God is always there and standing to take away the evil. 

*ahem..anyways ...Thanks to the firemen who worked hard to save the church! And here's the article of the aftermath

https://www.9news.com/article/news/nation-world/cross-crown-of-thorns-and-most-other-artifacts-safe-after-devastating-notre-dame-fire/507-32b911a6-c6ab-4a96-b207-bb14bf1e9f08

Edited April 16, 2019 by TBD

[Will Guide 21,325]

And can you believe how stupid Donald Trump was for suggesting using water bombing aircraft to put out the fire? Sure it would have put out the fire faster but would cause the whole place to collapse making the damage even worse. It already had 400 firefighters doing what they're trained to do.

Thank goodness I didn't vote for him. He's not my president 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,288]

Okay, I am going to come out of left field and give a different view on this. I fully understand that this building has been around for a long, long time and that gives it a lot of historical value for many. I get that. What I find so very odd is the reaction to this entire thing. The building is still structurally sound, it did suffer a lot of damage that needs repairing, but it could have been far worse. Yet, all over the world, entire governments are now pouring money into helping repair the building as well as many other fundraising ventures. We are talking at minimum over $1 billion worth so far and it is probably more by now.

Thing is, isn't the catholic church (which I believe this building is for) unbelievably wealthy? Don't they take in countless amounts of money every year tax free? I would think they are easily wealthy enough to fund these repairs by themselves without even suffering any major financial loss. You take that into account, along with the fact that all of this money is being thrown around to fix a church building, while people are still suffering every day from poverty, debts, lack of healthcare, the list can keep going. So I find it strange to see the world band together to fix some religious building for an organization that is simply loaded with money while they let people continue to falter. I personally think this money can go to far more important things.

2 hours ago, Will Guide said:

And can you believe how stupid Donald Trump was for suggesting using water bombing aircraft to put out the fire? Sure it would have put out the fire faster but would cause the whole place to collapse making the damage even worse. It already had 400 firefighters doing what they're trained to do.

Thank goodness I didn't vote for him. He's not my president 

This gave me a good laugh actually. That is some of that good ol' Donald Trump 'stable genius' intelligence on display. Love it.

[BritishBrony2012 719]

Sad of what happen to that lovely landmark, Love some of landmarks in my country, England and hate it if same happen to these landmarks.

[Celli 4,332]

On 4/18/2019 at 11:57 AM, Kyoshi said:

Okay, I am going to come out of left field and give a different view on this. I fully understand that this building has been around for a long, long time and that gives it a lot of historical value for many. I get that. What I find so very odd is the reaction to this entire thing. The building is still structurally sound, it did suffer a lot of damage that needs repairing, but it could have been far worse. Yet, all over the world, entire governments are now pouring money into helping repair the building as well as many other fundraising ventures. We are talking at minimum over $1 billion worth so far and it is probably more by now.

Thing is, isn't the catholic church (which I believe this building is for) unbelievably wealthy? Don't they take in countless amounts of money every year tax free? I would think they are easily wealthy enough to fund these repairs by themselves without even suffering any major financial loss. You take that into account, along with the fact that all of this money is being thrown around to fix a church building, while people are still suffering every day from poverty, debts, lack of healthcare, the list can keep going. So I find it strange to see the world band together to fix some religious building for an organization that is simply loaded with money while they let people continue to falter. I personally think this money can go to far more important things.

This gave me a good laugh actually. That is some of that good ol' Donald Trump 'stable genius' intelligence on display. Love it.

The cathedral is owned by the French government, not the Catholic church.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,288]

7 hours ago, Celli said:

The cathedral is owned by the French government, not the Catholic church.

Weird. Is it at all dedicated to the Catholic church in any way? Personally I still think the French government should pay for it, not the rest of the world.

[Patty Thundersnow 4,129]

This situation is very sad, but the fact that it happened in the holy week is even more so.

[Celli 4,332]

4 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

Weird. Is it at all dedicated to the Catholic church in any way? Personally I still think the French government should pay for it, not the rest of the world.

Yeah it is, just the French government has owned it for ages. And I dunno. Probably.