Remember when French premier Emmanuel Macron saw the Notre-Dame fire as an opportunity to modernize the cathedral, and announced an international architectural competition to produce a new, updated roof—a “contemporary gesture,” in his words? And remember when many well-known architects, much to their discredit, applauded the gesture. Macron’s plan was scotched by the almost universal negative reaction of curators, historic preservationists, and the French parliament. Now Macron is back in hot water with his plan to remove six stained glass windows and install modern replacements. The uproar is caused by the fact that the six removed windows were unharmed by the fire, and were in addition the work of Viollet-le-Duc, the architect who was responsible for the nineteenth-century restoration of the cathedral. Some critics have pointed out that there are a number of clear glass windows in the church that would be better candidates for replacement. Paradoxically, the proposed windows are not particularly “contemporary”; the artist, Claire Tabouret, is no Chagall.
