The French president had floated the idea of replacing the fire-ravaged cathedral’s 19th-century spire with a contemporary architectural gesture
President Emmanuel Macron of France on Thursday dropped the unpopular idea of building a modern spire atop a restored Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, a possibility he had floated after a devastating fire sent the previous spire crashing through the roof.
Just days after a blaze tore through the beloved cathedral in April last year, Mr. Macron, surprising many, suggested replacing the lost spire with a “contemporary architectural gesture.”
French authorities proposed a prestigious international architectural competition to replace the spire, leading to a flurry of preliminary proposals that ranged from the modern to the madcap, including a beam of light, glass-covered gardens and a 300-foot, carbon-fiber flame.
But the idea of a modern spire never caught on with critics or with public opinion, and Mr. Macron never committed to it.
....
