The spire of Notre-Dame de Paris was not replaced with glass, light or a rooftop garden. After the fire of 15 April 2019, architects around the world sketched bold modern alternatives, but France chose to rebuild the 19th-century spire as it stood before the blaze. The new 96-metre oak spire was unveiled in early 2024, and the cathedral reopened on 7 December 2024.
The proposals below are still worth a look. They show how differently designers read the same building, and they capture a real debate about what restoring a monument should mean: copying what was lost, or adding a layer from our own time.
Why France asked for new ideas
The fire started in the roof space on a Monday evening, during renovation work. Within hours the wooden roof, much of it made from medieval oak, was gone, and the spire had collapsed through the vault in front of a live television audience. The stone vaulting held over most of the nave, which is why so much of the interior survived.
Within days, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced an international architecture competition for the spire. He said France wanted “a new spire that is adapted to the techniques and the challenges of our era”, rather than a straight replica. President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, set an ambitious five-year deadline for the restoration.
That opening gave studios a reason to publish concepts, and many did so within the first week, often on Instagram. None of these images was a formal competition entry or a construction plan. They were quick visions, shared to start a conversation.
The cathedral before the fire, seen from the south bank of the Seine. The slender lead-covered spire rising above the crossing was designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and completed in 1859. Photo: V_E / Shutterstock.
Eight proposals from around the world
Norman Foster: crystal glass and steel
Notre-Dame competition an extraordinary opportunity, says Norman Foster. https://t.co/uQxmDZgHbz pic.twitter.com/FPpQgUmckF
— Royal Fine Art (@RoyalFineArt) April 20, 2019
The British architect behind London’s Gherkin and the glass dome of Berlin’s Reichstag was one of the first big names to speak up. In an interview with The Times he described a roof and spire of glass and stainless steel, light enough to read as a lantern above the old stonework.
His argument, given to The Guardian, was historical rather than stylistic. Each time a great cathedral lost its roof, he said, builders used the best technology of their day: “It never replicated the original.” He pointed to Chartres, where a 19th-century iron and copper frame replaced burnt medieval timbers.
AJ6 Studio (Brazil): a stained-glass roof
Alexandre Fantozzi (@alexandre_fantozzi) on
Alexandre Fantozzi of São Paulo-based AJ6 Studio imagined the whole roof and spire as stained glass. By day it would filter coloured light into the attic space; at night, lit from inside, it would glow over the Île de la Cité. Fantozzi tied the idea to the Gothic wish to link earth and sky, the same impulse behind the cathedral’s famous rose windows.
Godart + Roussel (France): a single slender needle
Godart + Roussel Architectes (@godart_roussel_architectes) on
The Paris firm Godart + Roussel also proposed a glazed roof, but paired it with a minimal, almost abstract spire that hints at the old silhouette without imitating it. Their post was more question than manifesto. Knowing that many Parisians would resist anything modern, they asked simply: “should it be done again the same?”
David Deroo: a flowing modern roofline
(The Instagram post originally embedded here is no longer available.)
The French-British artist and architect David Deroo drew a smooth, wave-like roof that echoes the outline of the lost timber frame in contemporary materials. He framed it as a balance between the old building and a visibly new addition. His original post is no longer online.
Studio NAB (France): a greenhouse and beehives
Studio NAB’s concept turns the roof into a glass greenhouse, with the spire reimagined as a tower for bees. Image: Studio NAB.
This was the most radical idea of the group. The Paris studio proposed an urban farm under glass, used for training and workshops, including sessions for local children, with the spire housing an apiary. There was a real precedent for the bees: Notre-Dame had kept hives on the roof of the sacristy since 2013, and they survived the fire.
Studio Fuksas (Italy): a crystal spire
Massimiliano e Doriana Fuksas (@fuksas_architects) on
Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, the Rome-based couple behind Studio Fuksas, kept the Gothic outline but rendered the spire in crystal, inspired by Baccarat glassware and lit from within after dark. They presented the fragile material as a deliberate symbol of how easily history and faith can be damaged, and the light as a sign of the immaterial.
Vizum Atelier (Slovakia): a beam of light
Vizum Atelier (@vizumatelier) on
Vizum Atelier, a visualisation studio from Slovakia, crowned a light, open spire with a vertical beam of light shooting into the night sky. The studio presented it as a modern take on what medieval builders were already trying to do: reach upward toward heaven.
Alexander Nerovnya (Russia): the old shape in glass
Alexander Nerovnya (@alex_nerovnya) on
Russian architect Alexander Nerovnya stayed closest to the original. His glass roof sits under a spire that follows Viollet-le-Duc’s silhouette fairly faithfully. In a follow-up post he noted that the cathedral had already been altered many times since its 12th-century beginnings, and argued that visitors would feel history more strongly seeing ancient and modern parts side by side.
Why the old spire came back instead
The modern ideas drew a fierce reaction. Many French people, along with heritage specialists, wanted the cathedral they knew. When Parliament debated the restoration law, the Senate tried to require that the roof be returned to its last known state. The National Assembly removed that amendment, and the law passed on 16 July 2019 without it, so the door stayed open for a while.
It closed in July 2020, when Macron accepted the advice of France’s national heritage commission and the chief architect to rebuild the spire exactly as Viollet-le-Duc designed it. Arguments that carried weight included:
- Authenticity: the 1859 spire was itself part of the listed monument and of Paris’s skyline for 160 years.
- Documentation: detailed surveys and laser scans made a faithful rebuild realistic.
- Time and consensus: a new design competition would have meant years of debate on top of a tight deadline.
The spire that rose again is 96 metres tall, framed entirely in oak and clad in lead. On top sits a recreated cross and a new golden rooster designed by chief architect Philippe Villeneuve, with flame-like wings meant to suggest rebirth from the ashes. Relics, including fragments believed to come from the Crown of Thorns, were placed inside it. The rooster was blessed and hoisted into place in December 2023, and the scaffolding around the spire came down in early 2024.
Donors pledged more than €840 million to the work. The cathedral reopened with a ceremony on 7 December 2024, followed by the first Mass at the new altar the next day. Exterior restoration is expected to continue until about 2028.
What this debate teaches about restoring old buildings
Myth: Notre-Dame was untouched for 800 years. It was not. The first spire, from the 13th century, was taken down in the late 18th century after it became unstable. Viollet-le-Duc’s spire, added in the 19th century, was itself a creative reinterpretation rather than a copy, which is exactly why some critics thought a modern addition would be in the same spirit.
Myth: the cause of the fire is known. Investigators have suggested a cigarette or an electrical fault, but no definitive cause has been confirmed.
Less discussed, but important: the old roof carried more than 400 tonnes of lead. When it melted, lead dust settled around the site, and the slow clean-up drew strong criticism. Safety and health issues like this shape restoration as much as aesthetics do.
The wider lesson is that there is no single right answer. Some cities rebuild exactly, as Warsaw did with its old town after the Second World War. Others add frankly modern layers, like the glass dome on Berlin’s Reichstag. Notre-Dame’s concepts are a useful record of the second path, even though Paris chose the first.
Sources: Wikipedia: Notre-Dame de Paris fire; Wikipedia: Reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris; Dezeen: Notre-Dame cathedral’s new spire revealed (March 2024); The Art Newspaper: New Notre Dame spire topped with golden rooster (March 2024); The Guardian: Should Notre-Dame get a modern spire? (April 2019). Concept images by Foster + Partners, AJ6 Studio / Alexandre Fantozzi, Godart + Roussel, David Deroo, Studio NAB, Studio Fuksas, Vizum Atelier and Alexander Nerovnya; pre-fire photo by V_E / Shutterstock.
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