[logfromblammo]

I think it would suffice to place a block somewhere in the reconstruction engraved with the date of the fire and the fact that the fire collapsed a portion of the structure, which was then rebuilt with modern techniques and materials appropriate for preserving the building as a public monument.

The danger is that more ephemeral records of the fire are eventually lost, and then a future archaeologist uses evidence from the structure to make conclusions about construction materials and methods of a particular era.

Besides that, the flying buttresses were not an original feature of the cathedral. If those could be added later, and become part of the historic character of the building, why not steel structural beams and reinforced concrete supports now?

[anoncake]

> Besides that, the flying buttresses were not an original feature of the cathedral.

Do you have a source for that? I thought a gothic cathedral without flying buttresses was like a skyskraper without a steel skeleton. The load-bearing structure isn't generally added to a building after the fact.

[ceejayoz]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/world/europe/notre-dame-c...

> After construction had begun, flying buttresses were added to the design of the cathedral.

IIRC, they also upgraded the first set with sturdier ones in the 14th Century.