Why shouldn't restoring it to "just like new" not be allowed? This reviewer says entering it now is like the medieval builders had just finished it, it's almost like time travel: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/dec/06/notre-d...

I wonder what that was _actually_ like given that it took 200 years to build. A lot less pollution so maybe it really did look _all_ shiny and new :-)

As sibling-comment said, no LEDs back then. They probably used soot-billowing torches, 200 years of that means the building must've looked pretty shabby already when done. So the state it currently is in is unrealistic after all.

medieval builders would have relied on the use of flame and natural light.

I think it all looks great with the exception of white-spectrum LEDs as far as the eye can see; the natural lighting of the past Notre Dame during early morning was special -- maybe it still is , but the white LEDs everywhere make it look 'clinical' to me.

Not sure but I think these lights are temporary the time for the ceremony, I would be very surprised they keep using them while other French cathedrals don’t.

I have complete trust in The Guardian to publish incorrect opinions on this matter.

The Notre Dame is a historical building. It's not meant to look like "new".

That’s the purpose of a restoration, like la gallerie des glasses à Versailles or Le Louvre and many other monuments in France.

The same applies to paintings

I wouldn't say "not allowed" because art is subjective, but there's a certain awe in visiting a place that shows clear signs of being many centuries old.

I obviously haven't visited Notre Dame yet, but when I visited the fully rebuilt Berlin Palace last year I did get an impression of "this place needs to age a couple hundred years before it's done".

Old buildings look so dark die to centries of dirt. Especially since industrialization and automobiles. But before that due to fires (for heating and light) For many of those old buildings there are light stones beneath the dark layer.

Same for glass windows, which in old times haven't been as clear as today possible, but still lighter than after centuries of dust settling.

The stone likely may have been painted, originally too. I asked a tour guide at Chartres about the why the floor was so rough and the walls so perfectly aligned. She said that the walls were not perfect, they painted over the stones and drew lines of perfect boundaries because the walls and ceiling represented heaven (perfect), while the floor represented earth (imperfect), so it used rough, variously-sized, unevenly fitted stones.

(Incidentally, this is related to why there are gargoyles on cathedrals. The church building is a microcosm of the cosmological universe. On the outside is untamed wild, which is where the monsters are (a monster being something we do not understand or cannot integrate, hence the abundance of chimeral combination of multiple animal and/or human parts). Inside the church is where the Kingdom is, with a baptistry at the beginning, because you enter the Kingdom through baptism. Then, the masses of the people in the Kingdom. And originally the altar was behind a screen, which represented the holy of holies, where God is; now this is often represented with a raised platform for the altar.)