Why Notre-Dame's new stained glass sparks outrage while Angers' contemporary porch goes unnoticed

A comparison of two contemporary interventions in French Gothic cathedrals reveals a paradox: the more physically invasive project at Saint-Maurice Cathedral in Angers—a massive contemporary porch by Kengo Kuma replacing a 13th-century porch destroyed in 1807—has provoked far less controversy than the replacement of six 19th-century stained-glass windows by Claire Tabouret at Notre-Dame de Paris. Both projects introduce contemporary gestures into medieval buildings, but the symbolic charge differs vastly. At Notre-Dame, the windows by Viollet-le-Duc are not destroyed but removed and will be displayed in museums. The 7-million-euro stained-glass project is tied to President Emmanuel Macron's desire to leave a mark on the restoration, despite opposition from the Commission nationale du patrimoine et de l'architecture (CNPA). In Angers, the 5-million-euro porch was approved by the CNPA weeks after the 2019 Notre-Dame fire and is seen as a conservative restitution to protect the portal's polychromy. The intensity of the debate correlates with Notre-Dame's global symbolic weight since the 2019 fire.