Notre Dame in Paris

Notre Dame is an English name for the Gothic cathedral situated in the lle de la Cite of Paris in France. In French it is called as Notre Dame de Paris. The main entrance of the Cathedral faces west and it is even now made use as Roman Catholic Cathedral and also Arch Bishop of Paris uses it as his seat. It has been standing as one of the live examples for the fine architectures of the Gothics of France. Notre Dame in French means “our lady” which was restored from destructions and saved by France’s one of the best architects Violett-Le- Duc.

Notre Dame’s construction span back to the period of Gothics and is also the first Gothic Cathedrals in 1163. This Cathedral has given importance to the naturalism and the secular architecture which was never found in any of the Roman Architectures. Stainless glass has been used in the construction of the architecture specially for giving a natural look. Flying Buttress was used in the Gothic cathedral in the world for first time taking into account all the buildings of that time. Gothic architectures had the construction of thin walls which became very famous and many were built of thin walls. But due to the stress fractures walls were getting pushed outward. During the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, Cathedral’s treasures like the great statues of Judea the biblic king and thought to be the king of France were plundered or destroyed.

The remainings of the plundered statues like the heads, and arms were recovered in 1977 while excavating a nearby place and are put for display in the museum. After all this disasters the cathedral was made use of as storage room or warehouse for food and forages. After many years the restoration of this Cathedral work was taken up by Eugene Violette-le-Dic and Jean Baptist Antoine Lassus in 1845 for 23 long years and construction of the spire and the sacristy was done. After the hard work of them Cathedral got its meaning and was started for religious purposes.

Bishop Maurice De Sully, after becoming the Parish church Of the Kings of Europe demolished the cathedral that was already there and had a dream of this Notre Dame Cathedral. The work began under the kingship of Louis VII, many buildings and houses were demolished for construction of this Dream Cathedral as per the records. Bishop De Sully had sacrificed his wealth and most of his life for the construction of the Cathedral. Work was not complete all for a single time. In 1200 two towers in the west front were built and many architects over the years had contributed for its design and glory which is noticeable that styles differ at different heights.

The last architect constructed the Rose windows for the whole of the cathedral and big halls underneath the towers, the complete work of the towers saw the completion in 1245 and the whole cathedrals completion was finally over by 1345. In 1871 a disaster took place inside the cathedral during the commune, Cathedral was fired by communards and it resulted in burning of chairs and the interiors and main architectural monuments survived the attack.