WelCom August 2020
The Notre Dame Cathedral spire will be rebuilt as a replica of the one destroyed in the fire at the cathedral last year, President Emmanuel Macron of France has announced.
Macron’s government had previously initiated an architectural competition to submit a variety of innovative suggestions for the restoration. The possibility of a new design for the spire of the historic building had been controversial. The designs proposed included a rooftop swimming pool and a greenhouse atop the 850-year-old cathedral.
Macron’s change of mind on the spire construction is due to a desire to finish the project quickly, the BBC reported. Paris is scheduled to host the Olympics in 2024, and choosing a new design for the spire would have delayed the construction.
Since the adoption of the 1905 law on separation of church and state, which formalised laïcité (a strict form of public secularism), religious buildings in France have been property of the state.
Originally built between the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, the landmark cathedral in the French capital is one of the most recognisable churches in the world, receiving more than 12 million visitors each year.