On 11 May, the CNPA (Commission Nationale du Patrimoine et de l’Architecture [1]) will examine the area around Notre-Dame, and in particular the future of the Jean XXIII and Île-de-France squares. For this purpose, the municipality has concocted a presentation file that we were able to obtain and which is worth its weight in gold. No doubt believing that it is addressing ordinary visitors, it is not content to serve up its usual novlangue, of which we will give a few crunchy extracts here. She tries to make people believe, thanks to a biased presentation, that the most debatable point of the project - the disappearance of the gates of the Archbishop’s garden (Square Jean XXIII) - does not exist.
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- 1. The feet of trees promised by the Paris City Council on its prospective views
(here in front of the Hôtel-Dieu) - See the image in its page
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- 2. What it becomes in real life
(Place de la République, 28/12/21)
Photo: Didier Rykner
Photo : Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The manipulations found in this document are reinforced by two processes that serve to further lose the reader.
Firstly, the multiplication of prospective images (ill. 1, 11 and 12) in which the Paris City Council has specialised, since it loves nothing more than Photoshop-type tools, allowing it to show a fantasised vision of the capital that has nothing to do with the results obtained (ill. 2).
Secondly, the absence of legends on many plans and diagrams, which is a basic requirement for this type of exercise. We therefore wonder. What does this series of dotted lines (ill. 3) mean? Are they constellations? The dots look like trees, but what do the lines connecting them mean?
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- 3. Diagram whose meaning is questionable...
They are probably trees, not constellations - See the image in its page
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- 4. One of the many plans without a legend
- See the image in its page
Another example: on this plan (ill. 4) we see various types of colours (light grey, dark grey, pink) and patterns (diamonds, squares, lines, etc.) without ever indicating what they represent. The same is true for this other one (ill. 5) where we find other cabalistic signs that are not further explained, and different circles, light or dark, with or without patterns, without any legend saying what they correspond to.
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- 5. Another plan without a legend apart from a few indications
which do not allow a real understanding of it - See the image in its page
We could multiply the examples of these more esoteric patterns that would probably make any student fail his or her architectural exam. We will continue with the wonderful speeches of the Paris City Council, which have no place in a technical dossier such as this one, but which they obviously cannot help but serve up in all kinds of fashions, to convince themselves more than they convince their readers.
Let us judge from a few extracts chosen only from the introduction:
"The Île de la Cité is the laboratory of the city’s transformation: its buildings and spaces are the plastic and sensitive crystallisation of the desires and needs, the concerns and dreams of the whole of Parisian society over the centuries". This sentence doesn’t mean anything, but it is pretty.
"Our project is based on the presupposition that the city is above all a living space that takes shape through the interaction of two forces: the collective and the climate. The renovation of the area around the cathedral, a common project, will demonstrate that the climate is always the work and space of the collective". Here again, we would like to understand what this sentence means...
It is true that since everything that Paris City Hall does from now on is officially done to "fight global warming", the redevelopment of the area around Notre-Dame was supposed to be exemplary on this subject. This is how they assert: "The project for the surroundings rethinks each figure from the double angle of the collective and the climate". It will be noted that they are not afraid to repeat, a few sentences apart, the connection that they must think of as intelligent, "the collective and the climate".
The entire introduction, which we could have quoted in full, is of the same ilk. And his last sentence is sublime, simply sublime, even daring to appeal to the spirits of Victor Hugo: "In his novel ’Notre Dame de Paris, 1482’, Victor Hugo immerses us in a medieval and imaginary Paris. Delivered in 2027, 545 years later, the project to redevelop the area around Notre Dame makes us dream of a Paris of the real future".
The rest of the 107 pages of this document, which should normally be a technical document, allowing the members of the CNPA to get a fair idea of the planned works, is largely written in the same style. The less understandable, the more likely it is to mislead the reader, which is probably what its designers thought, as they really do take the members of the commission for fools.
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- 6. Jardin de l’Archevêché seen from Notre-Dame cathedral (26 August 2013)
Photo : Shadowgate (CC BY 2.0) - See the image in its page
We continue here with John XXIII Square, which is the focus of criticism.
First of all, we learn that some of the lime trees in this square will gradually no longer be pruned. Thus, one of the charms of this 19th century garden, which was precisely the pruning of its trees that can be seen in photographs taken a few years ago (ill. 6), will disappear. This is not the worst thing, but it is absurd.
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- 7. Drawing in the document showing the project to be validated by the CNPA.
It can be seen that the gates surrounding the square Jean XXIII,
and those closing the square of Ile-de-France, have disappeared. - See the image in its page
But it is here (p. 9) that the greatest manipulation takes place. It reads, "The Viollet-le-Duc grilles, which has surrounded the square since the renovations of the Cathedral and its surroundings in the 19th century, is retained, but a double access gate is installed in the axis of Notre Dame" From this reading, one might hastily conclude (and this is obviously the aim of the writers) that the gates that have surrounded the square since its construction between 1837 and 1844 will remain in place. This is not true, of course, as the visuals below (ill. 7) demonstrate if you look closely: all the grilles surrounding the square are disappearing, except for the "Viollet-le-Duc grilles" which, contrary to what is written, do not surround the garden, but the cathedral. These grilles, which are classified as historic monument along with the cathedral, do not emerge completely unscathed from the operation, since a "double gate is installed in the axis of Notre-Dame". This double portal should allow, as we read further on p. 28, "to go around the monument". This is another lie, since while it is possible to walk around the cathedral inside this fence to the south and east, it is completely impossible to do so to the north (ill. 8). Not only because there is too little space between the cathedral and the fence, but also because for safety reasons (possibility of lead-polluted rainwater), this access will be forbidden to the public. It is therefore difficult to understand why the Viollet-le-Duc grilles should be mutilated to create a passageway between the Archbishop’s garden and the cathedral.
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- 8. Viollet-le-Duc’s grille surrounding the cathedral, seen from the north, which the document makes it look as if it will be possible to walk around inside this grille...
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The garden will not only be opened day and night by removing the grilles, which will be harmful both for the security and maintenance of the premises [2], as well as for the rest of the flora and fauna, it will also be lit at night, which is harmful to nocturnal animals. It should also be noted that nowhere here is there any mention of the presence of a species of bat, the common pipistrelle, which is nevertheless mentioned in the authorisation document requested from the Ministry of Ecological Transition. The CEREMA, a public institution under the supervision of this same ministry, has published a document on night-time lighting and biodiversity which confirms this negative impact not only on bats, but also on birds and insects. In a bright city like Paris, it would seem necessary to set aside night-time zones without light. And what can we say about the energy consumption involved in this lighting when the municipality is constantly talking about global warming?
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- 9. Jardin de l’Archevêché in August 2017
Photo : Google Earth - See the image in its page
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- 10. Jardin de l’Archevêché as planned, without the grilles, with the lawn enlarged and trampled (and which will not remain green for long)
- See the image in its page
Let us add that the lawn, whose elegant design certainly dates back to the creation of the garden at its opening in 1844, will be enlarged a little to a simple rectangle, opened to the public whereas it was protected from it by hedges, and deprived of the flowerbeds which have long adorned it (ill. 9). It is to be expected that this lawn, overcrowded with tourists who come to picnic there (ill. 10 and 11), will very quickly become nothing more than a patch of grated earth like those seen all over Paris. It should also be noted that the same lawns that everyone will be able to walk on are also appearing on the parvis, which we were told would be a mineral space, apart from the planting of trees around it - which is highly desirable and which we have nothing to say against.
As for the Square de l’Île-de-France, another haven of peace at the end of the Ile de la Cité, it will also be open day and night in continuity with the Archbishop’s garden, although it too should be made a sanctuary, especially as it contains the Deportation Memorial (classified as a historical monument).
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- 11. Vu du Jardin de l’Archevêché dans le projet, sans les grilles, avec les pelouses piétinées,
et la légende suivante : «Le square Jean XXIII s’étend du chevet à la pointe Est de l’île pour devenir un véritable espace public» (rappelons que ce square a toujours été ouvert au public) - See the image in its page
As far as the urban furniture is concerned, if the Davioud benches are announced to be maintained, and if most of the lighting seems to be in line with what can be expected in this place, the rest remains in an artistic blur, with nevertheless the precision that it will be "chosen in coherence, according to the recommendations of the Parisian "Manifesto for Beauty"". When one sees how this perfectly specious manifesto has been implemented elsewhere, it is necessarily worrying.
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- 12. View of the parvis planned in the project with lawns open to the public which will obviously not last long.
- See the image in its page
What can be found in this document intended for the Commission Nationale du Patrimoine et de l’Architecture, provided that one really digs and does not rely on the deliberately misleading phrases, is therefore very much in line with what we have been fighting against from the beginning. Not everything in this project is to be rejected. The parvis is generally acceptable - again with the exception of the lawns (ill. 12) and the "water wave", which is in danger of quickly resembling the "water mirror" on the Place de la République. But the treatment of the existing gardens is not, which is why we once again invite our readers to sign the petition mentioned in our brief yesterday.
Finally, we can be concerned by what we read about the "Ephemeral, seasonal or event-based installations" (p. 68): "the square measures 4500 m2 on an almost horizontal plane. This surface allows for the organisation of all kinds of events throughout the year". We can therefore see on the horizon what is now happening in most Parisian squares, around the Louvre, the Place de la Concorde, the Invalides, the Champ-de-Mars, etc.: the regular installation of tents and other temporary structures that follow one another "all year round" and transform the whole of Paris into a large fairground.
It is to be hoped that the National Commission for Heritage and Architecture will give a clearly negative opinion on the most unacceptable elements of this project. To have so neglected the opinion of the public, which had been consulted, and to have organised a competition before it could even give its opinion, should motivate it to ask the Ministry of Culture to oppose the Paris City Council.