Abstract:

Published four days after the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral, this opinion piece rebuked the hasty decision by then French President Emmanuel Macron to replace the spire destroyed in the conflagration with one in a contemporary style. Otero-Pailos took particular issue with the process announced by the French government to hold an international competition to award an architect all of the decision-making power to determine the aesthetics of the new elements. While appearing to be forward looking, this process actually harkened back to antiquated nineteenth-century preservation methods in its fixation on the visual form of the architectural object, and its effective exclusion of the voices of ordinary citizens. Against this old model, Otero-Pailos argued for setting up an inclusive participatory social process to ascertain the kinds of aesthetic experiences that are meaningful to people who are emotionally involved in this heritage place. Such a process would result in identifying the significance of unexpected character-defining aesthetic elements of Notre-Dame, such as its smell, in addition to its visual appearance. If conducted without a bias toward positive emotions, the process would raise awareness of the negative emotions that the interested public associates with the aesthetic experiences of Notre-Dame. Such awareness would in turn help keep questions of fairness at the center of the preservation process, attuning it to the demands for social justice and making politicians and preservation professionals accountable for how it might be achieved, not only through new experimental preservation aesthetics but also through new financial models, such as redistributing the enormous sums of private capital raised by the fire to other heritage sites and communities in more precarious states.

摘要：

在巴黎圣母院火灾发生四天后，这篇评论文章谴责了当时的法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙 (Emmanuel Macron) 草率地决定用现代风格的尖塔取代在大火中被毁的尖塔。Otero-Pailos 对法国政府宣布的举办国际竞赛的过程表示特别关注，该竞赛授予建筑师确定新元素美学的所有决策权。虽然看起来是前瞻性的，但这个过程实际上可以追溯到过时的 19 世纪保存方法，它专注于建筑对象的视觉形式，并有效地排除了普通公民的声音。反对这个旧模式，Otero-Pailos 主张建立一个包容性的参与式社会过程，以确定对情感上参与这个遗产地的人们有意义的审美体验类型。这样的过程将导致确定巴黎圣母院意想不到的角色定义美学元素的重要性，例如它的气味，以及它的视觉外观。如果在不偏向积极情绪的情况下进行，该过程将提高对感兴趣的公众与巴黎圣母院审美体验相关联的消极情绪的认识。这种意识反过来将有助于将公平问题置于保护过程的中心，使其适应社会正义的需求，并使政治家和保护专业人员对如何实现这一目标负责，