The new design will reportedly replace the cathedral’s confessional boxes, altars, and classical sculptures with modern art murals. It will also add sound and light effects to create “emotional spaces.”
The damaged Notre Dame Cathedral is getting a modernized interior update that has drawn criticism from traditionalists.
Newly released plans for reconstruction of the Notre Dame Cathedral will incorporate what some describe as a “politically correct Disneyland,” reports the Telegraph. Christophe Rousselot, the director-general of the Notre Dame Foundation, says the intent is to make the cathedral and Christianity accessible for those not raised in a Christian society.
“Foreign visitors see signs and magnificent paintings but don’t understand a thing,” Rousselot said. “Images and sculptures and paintings count, but so do words. So, there are plans to project on certain words and expressions in Mandarin, French, or Spanish and English.”
The new design will reportedly replace the cathedral’s confessional boxes, altars, and classical sculptures with modern art murals. It will also add sound and light effects to create “emotional spaces.”
The new design will include a “catechumenal path,” reports Fild Media. This path would be used to evangelize visitors, introducing them to 14 themed chapels depicting Genesis, Exodus, and the Prophets, as well as the five other continents and the church presence there.
The path would eventually end at a chapel dedicated to “reconciled creation,” a concept emphasized in Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ encyclical.
Father Gilles Drouin, who presented the plans to several European journalists, says the goal is to teach an anticipated audience of 12 million visitors with “multiple motivations” and no history in Catholic culture the basics of Christian faith without turning the tour into “catechism in the heavy sense of the word.”
Not everyone is happy about this, though. “It’s as if Disney were entering Notre Dame,” said Maurice Culot, a prize-winning Paris-based architect, theorist, and critic who was allowed to see the plans. “What they are proposing to do to Notre Dame would never be done to Westminster Abbey or St. Peter’s in Rome. It’s a kind of theme park and very childish and trivial given the grandeur of the place.”
The restoration project … planned to rehabilitate chapels based on three themes: the promises, the saints and the continents. The seven chapels on the north side of the cathedral will form the “ alley of promises”and will be devoted to: Genesis, Abraham, the Exodus, the Prophets and the theme Song and Wisdom. In the middle of these could also be added a “continental” chapel dedicated to Africa. The south side should house “the aisle of the saints” . Here, the subjects of the chapels will be: faith and reason, mysticism, charity, hope, mission and reconciled creation. The latter would be a nod to the encyclical of Pope Francis Laudato Sii . Among these chapels, one will be dedicated to a continent: Asia. The alley project was confirmed to us by Father Drouin during our email exchange…
… In an interview he gave to the program “Le Jour du Seigneur” published on July 11, 2021 on the internet, the architect Patrick Rimoux had mentioned luminous writings, dedicated to biblical passages, projected on the walls. These projections could be accompanied by a sound diffusion which would accompany the visitors along the catechumenal course. He had spoken of it to Father Drouin in the spring. These inscriptions were also mentioned by Christian Rousselot, the director general of the Notre-Dame Foundation who confirmed to our British colleagues a “ discovery trail for visitors.”. According to him, visitors admire paintings and symbols without necessarily understanding their meaning, and words are as important as images and sculptures, so it would be ” planned to project certain words and expressions in Mandarin, French or Spanish and English .”
For the projection of biblical passages, projectors with a power of 6,000 lumens should be installed. This information was revealed – perhaps unintentionally – by Patrick Rimoux himself during his interview. The architect gave another important information about the project: new benches will be placed in the main nave of the cathedral. The light sculptor talks about creating ” a lighting system on the benches that will allow us to accentuate what is important, the assembly .”
