I assume those designs are more about the architects promoting themselves than any expectation of winning the design competition.
That's a reasonable assumption. But it's sad that those are the designs that show up in the media. I blame news aggregators that err on the side of click-bait.
But keep in mind any project to restore the building to what it was pre-fire means restoring it to an appearance it's had only since the middle of the 19th century...
A very good point. The cherished image of the roof and spire was really from the 19th century. It's therefore legitimate to ask what is so sacred about that particular epoch of the cathedral's appearance, that it should be the restoration target. And one answer could be that it's the form that has been cherished for 150 years. If the goal of restoration is to recover and sustain that feeling, then stick with what is known to work. Gambling that the world will form the same degree of appreciation for a modern statement or a green statement or any sort of "statement" is a terrible waste. Don't make a statement. Respect the existing aesthetic, because that's what people came to love.
I'm not a purist when it comes to structure. Saying it ought to look the same as at some point in the past is not the same as saying it should be built the same way. I don't endorse cutting down an entire forest to recreate the massive timbers that were lost in the fire. If we have to hide a high-tech framework of, say, aluminum space frames between the vault and the roof in order to preserve the structure for the next hundred years, and support a new lightweight-but-heavy-looking roof, I would approve of that. The fact is many of these ancient structures need a little help, and we're getting better and better at hiding necessary structural remedies.
If the fire is to be treated as a lemons-to-lemonade exercise, then I still see little reason why a trendy, ephemeral re-imagining should be indicated. People point to the Centre Pompidou as a modern design that was originally hated but then came to be loved. Yes, and now it's considered architecturally passe. It's a quaint colloquial expression of a certain 1980s aesthetic that impresses no one today. A better architectural challenge, in my opinion, would be to attempt to recreate the form as originally designed. It would be an homage to the original artisans and architects.
I poked fun earlier at I.M. Pei. He's the one who put that gawdawful pyramid in the middle of the Louvre. We have to keep in mind this was an expansion, not a restoration. The original construction of the Louvre could not accommodate the press of visitors, so additional space was needed. The fear was that an annex would never match the style and grandeur of the palace. So Pei shoved all the service space underground, leaving only a single entrance. And he deliberately separated that structure both spatially and stylistically from the rest of the building. And it is still controversial. The justification given was that Pei could design no structure for access to the subterranean spaces that would duplicate or harmonize with the existing palace. That's debatable, but it's probable that Pei couldn't -- that wasn't his style. Notre Dame is not an expansion. No additional space is needed. We're recovering from a disaster, not extending the space to accommodate new needs.
I think a better design analogy is Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona. Gaudi didn't finish the design. But that doesn't stop modern architects devoted to Gaudi's inimitable style from imitating it and fleshing out the cathedral in a manner that expresses a whole aesthetic. There is no reason today's architects can't do similar. They reach for trendy modernism and deliberately controversial clashes because that's what
some architects do.
