The idea of building a wooden cathedral in the courtyard of the Notre Dame to temporarily serve visitors during the rebuilding of the emblematic cathedral of the French capital, which suffered severe damage from the Monday fire, is being discussed, as Monsignor Patrick Chauvet and French Minister of Culture Frank Riester announced today.
“We should not say that the cathedral has closed for five years and that’s it,” said Chauvet in the CNews news briefing. “So I thought, ‘Can’t I build a temporary cathedral in the courtyard?'”
The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, encouraged the project, added the Monsignor, and she accepted to grant “a part of the courtyard” for the erection of this “wooden” church, he added.
Monsignor Chauvet wants to have “a reception area where there will be priests available to talk to them” and whose purpose will also be to welcome the tourists visiting the Notre Dame de Paris every year. Those tourists amounted to 12 million in 2017.
The building that will replace it temporarily will be built “quickly,” said the priest of the Notre Dame, as soon as we “can access the courtyard”, which remains closed.
Source: ANA-MPA
