“We are meeting deadlines”, with a view to reopening Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral to worship and the public, planned in one year to the day, declared Emmanuel Macron during a visit to the construction site, Friday December 8 . For the occasion, he announced the launch of a competition for the creation of “six contemporary stained glass windows” which will bear “the mark of the 21st century” in the reconstructed cathedral, as well as the upcoming creation of a “museum of work of Notre-Dame” in the neighboring premises of the Hôtel-Dieu.
“It is a formidable image of hope and of a France that knows how to rebuild,” said the Head of State to the press from the nave of the religious building, after going to its summit to admire the new spire. He spoke of “a moment that is both important and moving” which testifies to the “extraordinary progress” of “this project which seemed impossible”.
In a letter sent this week, Mgr Laurent Ulrich, Archbishop of Paris, confirmed his “wish” to see the State order “a series of six stained glass windows for the south side chapels of the nave”. “I fully subscribe to it,” the president responded Friday. “It is with my full agreement that we are going to launch a competition which will allow contemporary artists to submit, on the basis of an order which will be placed, a figurative work”, he added, before arguing : “The century which is ours will have its place among several others which appear in the works of this cathedral”.
The Head of State also announced that the old stained glass windows “which date from Viollet-le-Duc”, as well as the rooster, which fell on April 15, 2019 in the collapse of the spire during the fire which ravaged the cathedral, “will take their place in a museum of the work of Notre-Dame de Paris” which will see the light of day “in the premises of the Hôtel-Dieu”. According to him, it will be “at the same time a history museum, an art museum, a museum which will also describe the permanent construction site of Notre-Dame de Paris”.
