The Belgian architect and landscape low Smets is the winner of the competition on the transformation of the surroundings of the Paris Cathedral.
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In a few years, when the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral is rid of the barracks installed since the violent fire of April 15, 2019, which visitors, believers and onlookers will come again, by millions, admire the facade remained standing or the arrow Rebuilt, they will be able to wait away from the sun and wind and go around the monument under cover of trees. A fine blade of water of 5 millimeters will even refresh the forecourt in the hottest hours. At least, it is the bet of the Belgian architect and landscape low Smets, who, alongside the Grau Parisian urban planning architects, specialists in the Newville-Gayet heritage or the engineer Franck Boutté, was appointed winner, Monday 27 June, competition on the transformation of the surroundings of Notre-Dame.
Singular, the exercise requested by the city from the four finalists, in close connection with the diocese and the State, was certainly: it was a question of intervening as little as possible on the existing, by virtue of This “absolute duty to preserve the heritage”, reiterated Anne Hidalgo (PS), the mayor of the capital, to “magnify” the building, while responding “to this climate imperative without which we will no longer be able to live in a city like [Paris] “. Add to that the complexity of a site that is both religious, a high place of mass tourism and pride of Parisians. A more radical first proposal had been worked under the chairmanship of François Hollande, before being buried. The project was relaunched after the tragedy that had frozen the whole world.
In its response, the team led by Bas Smets offers to create “microclimates”, by vegetating the spaces, by bringing water, to minimize the heat of heat to which the district, Very mineral, is exposed. “Our project consists in developing very urban figures towards climatic figures”, summarizes the young “landscape architect”, who also plants hedges along a highway in Belgium and has produced the Park des Ateliers de la Fondation Luma , in Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône). “What we realize there is important for all of Paris. It shows how the rest of the city can be adapted.”
131 additional trees, an increase of 36 % of the vegetation
The forecourt is first thought of as “a clearing”. The entire project promises 131 additional trees, an increase of 36 % of the vegetation, but no subject must plug the perspectives, especially those from the bridges that span the Seine. All stones on the ground, damaged and polluted with lead, must be replaced by Ile -de -France sandstone, according to a layout which takes up that of the interior of the church.
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