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Crisis Averted at Chartres

The rather garish and invasive plans to renovate the parvis of Chartres cathedral, turn it upside down, and install a museum underneath — previously reported on here in 2019 — have been radically revised in an infinitely less offensive direction.

The City of Chartres has released the final approved designs which show the esplanade of the cathedral renovated but left largely in place.

Instead of the original plan up reversing the grade of the parvis upwards away from the cathedral, the entire museum will be kept underground and out of sight.

The postwar buildings next to the Canons’ Houses will be removed and replaced with a mediaeval garden with a flank of trees.

The existing bitumen surfacing of the forecourt will be replaced with light sandstone paving.

Access to the underground museum will be through the Canons’ Houses.

The new plans mean that the underground museum will be visually irrelevant but perfectly accessible — just the right combination.

They are a vast improvement on the original designs, even though a more traditional urbanism might be more appropriate here.

The current design is based on the very fashionable ideas of landscape urbanism, and one fears the appearance of the parvis will date more quickly than a design that aimed for timelessness.

But the fundamental principle is that we must never let the perfect be the enemy of the good: this will leave Chartres, its citizens, pilgrims, and visitors with an improved experience both compared to the existing set-up and to the misguided initial renovation plans.

We can breathe a sigh of relief.

Published at 12:10 pm on Wednesday 15 November 2023. Categories: Architecture Church France Tags: , , , .
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