Heritage
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French Ministry of Culture budget conference: good news and bad newsFrench Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak presented the Ministry of Culture’s budget on Wednesday. As we have often written, a budget can only be fully judged once it has actually been spent. In…
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Disappearance of Paris: an Art Deco building and several treesThe disappearance of Paris under Mayor Anne Hidalgo, which we denounced in a book published last year by Belles Lettres, is no fiction, unfortunately, and this disappearance is even accelerating.…
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Three paintings sold by a French prefecture...The sale, which is online only, closes tomorrow at 11am. So it’s very late to be talking about it, but we didn’t find out about it until yesterday, Sunday, and we didn’t get a full reply (obviously…
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Protection du patrimoine : de bonnes mesures qui ne résolvent pas toutNous critiquons suffisamment souvent la politique patrimoniale du chef de l’État pour convenir que, pour une fois, les mesures qu’il a annoncées hier en faveur du patrimoine religieux vont dans le…
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The Palais de la Porte Dorée looks after its Art Deco heritageHow can we not talk about resurrection? A complete décor has been reborn for visitors to this iconic French Art Deco monument : the beautiful Salon des Laques has been restored to its original…
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Interview with Mathilde Augé, Executive Director of WMF FranceThe World Monument Fund is an international organisation dedicated to safeguarding architecture and heritage. It had an affiliate office in France that took part in numerous restoration projects…
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Esplanade des Invalides and Champ-de-Mars: a case study in misinformationSacking Paris, as foreign tourists visiting the French capital can see, is not the only activity of Paris City Council. It also has a passion for denying the facts, even though these can be…
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Back to L’Aquila (6). Duomo restoration work finally beginsIn 1703, the L’Aquila earthquake almost completely destroyed the cathedral, which was rebuilt by the Roman architect Sebastiano Cipriani from 1711 onwards, only to be reopened in 1780, the…
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Back to L’Aquila (5). The rediscovered frescoes of Santa Maria della MisericordiaThe destruction caused by earthquakes can sometimes be offset by the rediscovery of works that had remained hidden for centuries. This is the case in L’Aquila, notably in a small church that is…
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Back to L’Aquila (3). Il Museo Nazionale d’AbruzzoSince its creation in 1951, the National Museum of Abruzzo has been housed in the Forte Spagnolo of L’Aquila, built in the 16th century. This impressive fortress, designed by the architect Pere…
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Back to L’Aquila (2). The church of Santa Maria del SuffragioAs was the case on a much larger scale in Sicily after the devastating earthquake of 1693, the 1703 seism in L’Aquila in Abruzzo was also the occasion for the construction of religious buildings…
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A French artist’s decor at Sant’Andrea al QuirinaleThe church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, one of Bernini’s architectural masterpieces, is certainly one of the best known in Rome. But in this city of inexhaustible heritage, even the most famous…
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Back to L’Aquila (1), twelve years laterIn July 2011, just over two years after the earthquake that struck the Abruzzo town of L’Aquila, we visited the restoration work underway. At the time, the city was partly off-limits, and the…
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Sculptures from the rood screen at Notre-Dame: obstruction from the body responsible for archaeological digsWe know that the salvage excavations at the transept crossing of Notre-Dame have found, as might be expected, some of the sculptures from the 13th-century rood screen destroyed in the 18th…
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The Drosnay church fireIt’s a tradition we could do without: as soon as a church in France burns down, the extremists go wild on social networks to denounce a supposed Islamist attack on the values of the West. But…
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The heritage damage caused by the Val-de-Grâce explosionWhile we cannot forget the tragic human toll of the explosion that took place at the Val-de-Grâce on 21 June, with at least one dead, four seriously injured and around fifty more slightly injured,…
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Mr Vandal, do you accept the protection of the monument you are about to destroy?The French system for protecting historic monuments, which used to be one of the best in the world, is severely seized up. In addition to the legislative regressions we have witnessed in recent…
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The liturgical refurbishment of Notre-Dame will calm the debateThe Archdiocese of Paris has just announced its plans for the redevelopment of Notre-Dame de Paris, which will be submitted to the CNPA (National Commission for Heritage and Architecture) on 13…
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The few words we’ll be writing about CarnacThe case was revealed by the "Sites & Monuments" association and made the front page of many newspapers and TV channels: work was carried out on a site in Carnac without following the INRAP…
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Threats to the heritage of the Faubourg Saint-AntoineThe under-protection of France’s heritage, particularly in Paris, the incomprehensible lack of "sites patrimoniaux remarquables" in the capital with the exception of those in the 7th…
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It is time to respect the Louvre ColonnadeA meeting was organized today at the Paris Centre City Hall by its mayor Ariel Weil to launch a reflection on the "Place du Louvre," an inappropriate term since this one, which is in front of the…
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Restoration of the Porte Dorée at the Château de FontainebleauWhat remains of the original decoration? The 16th-century frescoes that adorn the Porte Dorée of the Château de Fontainebleau are in a sorry state, victims of the passage of time, climatic…
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Surroundings of Notre-Dame: facts versus propagandaThe defense of the gardens of Notre-Dame is also a battle of communication. Thus, the article by Claire Bommelaer in Le Figaro, very factual and well informed, was titled - in the print edition:…
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Surroundings of Notre-Dame: the CNPA wants to keep the gatesLa CNPA (Commission nationale de l’architecture et du patrimoine) se réunissait donc ce matin pour aborder la question des abords de Notre-Dame. Le problème de ce type de commissions est qu’elles…
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The law that imposes gates around Square Jean XXIIIThanks to social networks, some Internet users can quickly disseminate vital information that can help advance heritage protection issues. For example, a Twitter account that prefers to remain…
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Open letter from associations about the Notre-Dame surroundingsAs part of the major national project to rebuild Notre-Dame de Paris, the City of Paris has planned to redevelop the areas around the cathedral that extend from the square to the eastern end of…
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Surroundings of Notre-Dame: the fake news of Emmanuel Grégoire (3): the disappeared benchesIn our series on the fake news spread by Paris City Hall, we can go back to the title of the first article because this time Emmanuel Grégoire, the mayor’s first deputy, is clear and martial on a…