The furnace that consumed the roof and fabled spire of Notre Dame on Monday had not yet cooled when an architectural competition to rebuild the maimed 12th-century cathedral was announced. Would Frank Gehry throw in his hat? Norman Foster? Richard Rogers of Pompidou fame?
Notre Dame is a focus of Catholicism in a country that, at least since the French Revolution, has been drifting deeper and deeper into inattentive secularism. So it was no surprise when a headline announced that "Architects and Historians Wonder: Maybe The New Notre Dame Should Be Less 'Overburdened' With Christian Meaning."
That is more or less like musing, "Maybe Christianity should be less 'overburdened' with Christian meaning."
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