Sports Editor Eunice Bae decided to add a little «ooh-la-la» to her Wednesday evening with a talk by Dr. Allan Potofsky about the Notre-Dame de Paris at Columbia’s Maison Française, learning a surprising amount about fire codes.

The Notre Dame fire of this past April came as a shock to most of the world– it was devastating to see such an iconic monument of the City of Love in flames. The cathedral, while it has taken on many forms throughout time, has been around for nearly a millennium, with original construction starting in 1163. The damage done to the structure, notably the destruction of the iconic spire, raised questions regarding the reconstruction of the building: what comes next?

Dr. Allan Potofsky began his talk by briefly establishing a few points about the current state of the cathedral and its rebuilding. Firstly, the cathedral will not be rebuilt within the next five years as French president Emmanuel Macron so boldly claimed earlier this year (this would coincide with the 2024 Summer Olympics, which are being hosted in Paris). Secondly, the cathedral will not be rebuilt «à l’identique» due to the never-ending debate of which Notre Dame is the “authentic” one. Lastly, the roof will not be rebuilt into a giant swimming pool in the shape of a cross nor will it be transformed into a giant greenhouse. Bummer.

According to Potofsky, this April’s fire was not a shock because it was unimaginable– rather, it was a miracle that this hadn’t happened already! With its 850-year-old timber rafters, which have been ready to rock and burn for the last NINE centuries, and lead-lined roof, it’s amazing that the Notre Dame has managed to stand for this long without a major fire such as this. Ultimately, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact cause of the fire, but the age of the structure itself in combination with the wood and lead roof most certainly did not help prevent the spread of the fire.

One of the reasons why Notre Dame may have avoided a catastrophic fire for so long may be due to strict fire regulations put into place by the canon of the church in 1754. They focused heavily on fire prevention and the church’s roof. Due to the lead lining, a very specialized type of worker, known as a plombier, was tasked with any work involving the roof. Lead-lining anything, let alone a roof with many beams of dry timber, involved extreme precision and care. People were banned from carrying candles/open flames in the rafters and when walking on stairs and all construction work had to be finished while there was still daylight.

Like I said, fire prevention was key.

While fires clearly were a thing back in the first six centuries of the cathedral’s existence, the Great Fire of London in 1666 formed a new, terrifying precedent for the church’s canon. Also, the Petit Pont, a bridge very close to the church, caught fire in 1718, increasing clergy members’ concern regarding fire prevention, and the crowded nature of the surrounding neighborhood did nothing to ease their concerns. Their question was if it happened to London, why wouldn’t it happen to Paris?

While Paris itself didn’t burn, fires still broke out. In the works of artists like Hubert Robert and Nicolas-Jean-Baptiste Raguenet, one can discover images of Parisian buildings going up in flames, painting the sky red with tongues of fire and emitting thick layers of smoke. Potofsky asserted again and again that it was an absolute miracle that both the cathedral and the city itself weren’t destroyed by a major fire at any point in history.

The entire talk was very informative and entertaining, but perhaps the most shocking point of the entire evening was the following: the Notre Dame we know and love today is not the Notre Dame Parisians knew until very recently in modern history. As late as the 18th century, Notre Dame was completely irrelevant to the people of Paris– as its surrounding areas were cleared of housing out of concern of fires spreading, the church itself began to fall into disrepair. It was vandalized and looted. Its gothic architecture style was dismissed as unappealing and outdated, and its association with the monarchy did little to boost its standing amongst the French people at the turn of the 18th century. People advocated for the dominance of a cleaner, more classical architectural style (such as that of the Hôtel des Invalides), creating an almost “anti-gothic” movement. Parisians longed for a more beautiful, new aesthetic to the city, and it seemed as though the Notre Dame were becoming irrelevant to the point of oblivion. The building was kept by the state following the French Revolution, and it wasn’t until Napoleon came around that it began to serve somewhat of a real purpose again, although it was more of a state-related monument at that point. The Notre Dame as we know it today was restored by French architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc beginning in 1844, and it has continued to serve as a religious monument, location for events of the state, and tourist attraction.

Now, the big question on many people’s minds is this: what do we do about the spire? The spire destroyed in April was out of proportion thanks to a miscalculation on Viollet-le-Duc’s part, and it was in neo-gothic style (instead of gothic). Should the spire be rebuilt? Which version should be recreated? The essential question: which Notre Dame is the authentic, real Notre Dame? Nobody knows. Potofsky ended his talk by saying that he thinks the spire shouldn’t be rebuilt at all, which elicited MANY gasps from the audience, seniors and middle-aged attendees alike. But he’s right– who’s to say there should even be a spire? We might think it’s silly to not rebuild it, but that could just be because we live in an era where a giant-ass spire has been around for the last 150 years or so.

What do you think?

Dr. Potofsky via Eunice Bae