As the year draws to a close in December, it’s a great time to look back and forward with winter living and spirit.

Having winter solstice, Christmas and New Year’s Eve all in one month, December is the 1st month of winter to end the year with wonderful holidays and celebrations. It’s a colorful season to greatly enjoy winter wonderland and festive activities, it’s also a busy season for reflecting, giving, appreciating and greeting…

For many, December is such a special time of year to look at the past year and plan the year ahead. From valuable lessons to inspiring stories and movements, history shapes our present and future. We learn from history, we protect historic places, we save our heritage and health with innovative digital for good.

It’s almost end of the year, our countdown to New Year begins now with good cheer and inspirations…

Innovative history for cultural heritage

December is annual art and architecture month to appreciate excellence and beauty in design. As a famous gothic architecture in the world, Notre Dame de Paris has officially reopened to the public on December 8 after being closed more than 5 years. Since 2019, a huge reconstruction has been undergone for last few years due to a massive blaze. Now the cathedral is rebuilt from the ashes, and finally came back with a new life.

With the grand reopening ceremony and Christmas holiday in December, the catholic church is renowned for its medieval statue of the Virgin Mary with child to symbolize Mary’s divine motherhood. From a French cultural icon to one of the world’s top heritage sites, the architectural design and style make the historic monument very distinguished and timeless for its finest gothic art: timber roof, flying buttresses, towering spire, stained rose windows and treasured art objects etc.

Notre Dame is Our Lady in French, a title of Mary – mother of Jesus. Dedicated to Mother Mary, the Cathedral in Paris was originally built in the Middle Ages, a very long construction spanned about 100 years with several big phases from 1160s to 1250s, then over the following 3 centuries, it still kept being worked by a few great architects for evolution and improvement. Perfection comes over time, it finally becomes a masterpiece of Gothic architecture for its antiquity, structure and design values.

Right in the heart of Paris, Notre Dame lies on a central island in the River Seine (Île de la Cité). With a history of more than 860 years, it’s welcomed countless worshipers and visitors around the world for praying and discovering. Popular and magnificent, the Cathedral is a place of faith that mainly consists of 3 facades and 5 portals, 2 towers with a signature spire in the middle, a city plaza and an archaeological museum.

Home to many neoGothic artworks and precious objects, it has a total of 29 different chapels, a rounded apse and transept, a renovated treasury with modern museography, a liturgical choir and nave flanked by double aisles, 21 bronze bells and 3 pipe organs. On a rectangular plan like a Latin cross, it covers approximately 6,000m², measured about 50m and 126m for the width and length. With a height of 115m from the bottom to the top of towers, it specially contains a complex wooden roof with late medieval techniques, plus 3 famed rose windows among the large scale stained glasses.

Spacious and well framed, this Parisian building is the largest religious construction in Europe around the 12th century, it can accommodate up to 9,000 people, including 1,500 in the galleries. From ribbed vaults inside to decorative Le Stryge outside, from the Grand Organ to the Sainte Chapelle, it’s truly a unique experience to explore Notre Dame in 4 dimensions: historical, spiritual, artistic and cultural. Let’s look at some details and stories about its beautiful architecture and decors:

– the main entrance and 3 facades

The main entrance is formed by 3 portals on the side of west facade, which is built with a set of vertical lines (4buttresses and 2towers) and horizontal lines (portals, gallery of kings, bays, columns), as a result of innovative structure with geometric design of lines and squares to make up a large entrance.

On the lower part, the Portal of Saint Anne stands right side, and is dedicated to the mother of Mary. The 2 lintels depict Mary’s marriage and her mother’s marriage, also the life episodes of Christ including the Annunciation to Mary, the Visitation Mary, the Nativity of birth, and the Epiphany about adoration of the Magi. At the center, where the Virgin and Child sit on a throne under a canopy and bear royal attributes of the crown and the scepter, they are flanked by the King of France and the Bishop of Paris to show the royalty and Christianity.

In the middle, The Portal of the Last Judgment depicts God’s judgment on the living and the departed, where the cursed are punished, and the blessed are welcomed into eternal life. The narrative scenes include the Archangel Michael weighs souls: the elect ones are led to paradise, while the damned, chained and terrified ones are led by demons to hell. The heavenly court has angels, patriarchs, prophets, doctors, martyrs and virgins, with the lip lamps for the hope of gaining paradise, opposite of hell with the extinguished lamps. An archway of wood narrates Mary, who is adorned with a crown held by 2 angels. Other sculptures contain the statues of the wise and foolish virgins on the central pillar, 12 statues of apostles in the jambs with the medallions of virtues and vices.

On the left is the Portal of the Virgin particularly devoted to Mary, with the narrative scenes of her Assumption into Heaven and her coronation as Queen of Heaven. There are 9 statues of protective Saints on either side, a depiction of 12 months of the year and the zodiac signs representing the cycle in the jambs. On the central trumeau, the Virgin and Child trample the serpent symbolizing Satan, the four seasons and the four stages of life are described on their both sides to represent the cycle of life, underneath is the story of Adam and Eve. On the lintel, Mary is in paradise, seated and crowned by an angel. She sits beside her son, Jesus bless her and gives her the scepter, she becomes the Queen of Heaven around angels, patriarchs, kings and prophets.

On the upper part, the Gallery of King is surmounted by a small terrace with a 9.6-meter diameter of rose window at the center, where 2 angels with candlesticks symbolize sin and redemption flanking a central statue of the Virgin. On the top, 2 square towers are bordered by an openwork balustrade with the bronze bells and the Emmanuel bourdon inside.

The north facade and its cloister portal were built with new architectural concepts like a triangular gable surmounts the portal, an openwork gallery with a large rose window in the middle, a 3 levels’ structure supported by flying buttresses, and a large pinnacle in the shape of spires rises from its base on each side…Beside of the portal, it’s the small Red Door to access to the choir of the Cathedral. In the Middle Ages, red was the color reserved for women. In iconography, Our Lady Mary is dressed in a red robe then in blue through the history.

At the center of the portal, the statue of the Virgin and Child is placed on the trumeau as a typical French sculpture. The lintel, in the lower part of the tympanum, depicts 4 scenes from Christ’s childhood: the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, the Massacre of the Innocents by Herod, and the Flight into Egypt. The life of the Virgin is sculptured on bas-reliefs in a quadrilobed decor, and the Virgin’s posture is delicate, slightly swayed with her maternal smile for a majestic and humanized image of the woman and mother.

The south facade features the same architectural elements as the north side, and the Saint Stephen portal closes the south arm of the transept. Above the portal, it’s pierced by a 13-meter diameter rose window and the gable is on the top with 2 large pinnacles and 3 statues representing 2 Saints and Christ. Saint Stephen is the first Christian martyr, his life is shown with 3 depicting scenes on the tympanum of the portal and his statue stands on the central pillar between the 2 doors. The triple arch of the door is carved with 21 martyrs crowned by angels, with three statues of apostles on either side of the portal.

– rose windows and stained glass art

Technically, Gothic architecture is not only ambitious in artistic splendor, but also innovative about the light design to illuminate inside with the flourishing of large stained glass windows and enlarged high windows, which were rare and expensive with intense colors and large quantities of pigments to bathe the building in colored light. Notre Dame Cathedral is covered nearly 1000m² (about 1100ft²) by the stained glass windows as part of medieval architecture. Among them, 3 large rose windows (rosaces) from 13th century are placed over the main portals of west, north and south facades, the diameters are respectively 9.70m, 13.10m and 13.10m.

Known as the masterpieces of Gothic art, they were designed to pierce the wall and accentuate the entry of light into the building, with the shape of the openwork bay in the wall. Rose is the name of stained glass featuring different sizes, compositions and iconographies by the time of production, such as imagery stories, outward radiating and circular patterns etc.

The west rose window is dominated by the Virgin and Child at the center of the composition. With 24 spokes on 3 concentric circles, there are vices and virtues in pairs on the upper level, 12 signs of zodiac in the lower level. Similarly, the north rose window has the image of Mary holding the Christ child on a central medallion. To compare with the other 2, it also has preserved most of the original and intact glass from the 13th century onward.

The south rose window, also called as the noon rose, measures about 19m including the clerestory the glazing. 84 panels are painted in 4 circles, with numbers symbolically arranged in 4s, 12s and 24s. The 12 apostles are distributed in the circles, mixed with honored saints and martyrs in France. Among the depicting scenes, there are the 4 Great Prophets to represent a meditation from the 13th century:

We are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, not because our sight is sharper or our stature higher, but because we are lifted up by their giant size.

– interior architecture

Characterized by its Gothic style and ribbed vaulting, the cathedral rises on 3 levels from large arches and galleries to stained-glass rose windows and high windows. It has an interior area of 4800m² with a semicircle shaped apse decorated by the depicting panels about the life of Virgin, 113 windows on all sides, 29 chapels, 75 columns and pillars inside.

The nave is the central part of the building and a vast space to accommodate a large number of worshipers. Raised from the ground to the vaults, it consists of pillars, pilasters and columns that accentuate the effect of verticality. These verticals are broken horizontally by arcades and capitals, the regular rhythm between verticals and horizontals shows greatly a visual harmony for people.
On the top, the vault rests on ribbed arches above the transept crossing. Between each pillar, it’s vaulted with 6 ribs as a sexpartite composition, which is an architectural feat with dimensions never before achieved. The vaulted ceilings and ribbed design are not only aesthetic but very strong and stable to protect the interior of the building.

The Treasury is a unique space where spirituality, art and history come together. It preserves precious objects used in Catholic liturgy, such as sacred vessels, ornaments and liturgical books for Mass, offices and administering sacraments. After the destruction by the Revolution in 18th century, the sacristy was resurged around the mid-19th century at a small square cloister, decorated by ornamental sculpture and stained glass windows. It’s evolved through the history for its exhibition and preservation of religious items and their sacred values.

– exterior architecture

Historically, the cathedral is built with a geometrical concept for a symmetrical and tripartite space. A visual harmony is combined with the square (symbolizing the rational and limited world) and the circle(symbolizing the divine and unlimited spirituality). By using the materials of limestone and marble, a great mastery of techniques innovated the architecture by cutting stones, lightening the walls, piercing large openings, intersecting the ribs of the vaults, placing flying buttresses on the facades and preventing collapse in such a vast building.

The large single-arch flying buttresses is a major innovation of Gothic architecture both in height and slenderness. They have a single flight spanning over the galleries, their heads support the upper walls of the structure, which were topped with stone pinnacles and entirely carried by the ribbed vault with a series of counter-supports. This genius techniques made the walls higher and thinner with larger clerestory windows on. Especially they provide a dual practical function: solving the rainwater drainage problem without runoff on the stone, countering the facade and supporting the vault’s weight well to prevent it from collapsing.

Also for protecting the walls and stones from rainwater’s deterioration, a set of 54 chimeras were placed around the railings of the cathedral, to designate the ends of gutters to drain water far from the roof. These carved stones are Gargoyles as part of neoGothic decor with grotesque features. They’re famous about their overhanging appearance leaning into the void, animal forms and fantastical figures. In the mythology of classical antiquity, these ornamental sculptures have spiritual significance both good and evil, each has its own unique history and symbolism. One of the typical Gargoyle is called Le Stryge, perched on an angle along the gallery of the north tower, which is known as an image of gazing over Paris with a contemplative expression.

With a title of the forest, the original wooden roof of Notre-Dame was one of the oldest structure in Paris. Built in the 13th century, it had a big number and intensity of beams, each of them came from a different oak tree and some of the wood was even 3 or 400 years old already. The implementation of rib vaulting, pitched roofs, lead sheets and steep structure is innovative for its impressive dimensions: 100m in length, 13m in width, and 10m in height, plus 40m in the transept.

Above the transept crossing, the central spire of Notre-Dame is an architectural feat of Gothic style. The independent structure was restored in the 19th century, supported by the 4 pillars of the transept with an octagonal base. Soaring to a height of 96m (315ft) from the ground, the ornamental spire was composed of 500 tons of oak wood and 250 tons of lead, decorated with copper statues of the 12 apostles and symbols of the 4 evangelists. A copper rooster perched on its top as a weathervane to detect changes in the weather, and help people prepare for storms and other weather events.

Historically, the Gallic rooster is the bird of light and national symbol of France, it also symbolizes the sense of vigilance and protection in religious activities. Thus the famed statue was more than just a decorative feature and a practical weathervane, it’s deeply associated with cultural traditions and significance for centuries. The iconic rooster atop the spire contained a reliquary: a fragment of the crown of thorns, a relic of Saint Denis (a 3rd-century Christian martyr and saint), and one of Saint Geneviève (patron saint of Paris, who allegedly saved that city against plague, disasters and invasion in the 5th century.)

-surroundings along the river Seine

Designated a World Cultural Heritage site by UNESCO, the French state owned historical monument remains a notable place of worship and a must-see attraction right on the Seine. From its upper gallery on the towers, it’s a magnificent view of Paris over the Seine, a succession of bridges across the river with unique scenery along the both left and right banks.

In a large scale, the Holy Chapel (Sainte Chapelle) is a hidden gem just down the road about 500m from Notre Dame, also a historical monument in Gothic style as a symbol of royalty. It used to be the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century, now becomes a museum with 2 levels of structure marked by its high vaulted ceilings, delicate interiors and extremely detailed stained glass panels. The lower chapel was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, with her column statue as the portal and many other decorative sculpture and murals. The upper level housed the Crown of Thorns and was reserved exclusively for the King and Queen during worship. The wall is featured by thousands of small pieces of glass to turn it into large screens of colored light, above archivolts and arches are richly decorated with painting and sculpture of angels.

Known as a prime example of rayonnant architecture and flamboyant techniques, the absence of masonry walls is the most striking aspect of its original construction. Replaced by pillars and buttresses, the space in between is filled almost entirely with glass to let light passes through its nave. Especially there are 15 stained glass windows that create spectacular walls of light in deep hues of red and blue. Covering a surface of 6500ft² in total, this glass framework is a beautiful work of art illustrating about 1100 characters with intricate patterns and iconographic scenes, while bathing its interior with a spectacular glowing of light like a kaleidoscope of colors.

When crossing the river and strolling along the Left Bank, it’s the Latin Quarter that’s one of the oldest districts in Paris founded by the emperor Napoleon in the 19th century. There are many universities and faculties, classic cafes filled by students and arty bookstores, to make the area as a hub of academic and artistic life. With a rich and incomparable history, it’s also home to winding cobblestone streets, botanical garden and historic landmarks like the stately Panthéon holding the remains of notables and great minds including Victor Hugo, Rousseau, Voltaire, Marie Curie and Alexandre Dumas.

The river side is famed for the open air booksellers(bouquinistes) with their green painted metal stalls as part of scenic views alongside the Seine. It’s a tradition all the way back to the 16th century, then it flourished over time, more and more popular becoming a cultural icon for people. There are about 200 independent outdoor booksellers offer some 300,000 collectable, new and used books and magazines under open skies. Especially in spring and summer, it’s very enjoyable to casually browse them for classic works of literature or non fiction, collectible and rare titles, old magazines and editions, vintage items and original gifts, artworks and more. In a charming French style, the Seine-side traditional booksellers remain one of the city’s most treasured legacies.

In front of Notre Dame, a large esplanade with benches and raised shrubbery beds forms the stone-paved parvis, which is an open square about 1200m² bordering by the Hôtel-Dieu hospital and national headquarter of the police. On the river side of the parvis, there is a historical structure as a point of interest and an equestrian statue of Charlemagne and His Guards (Charlemagne et ses Leudes), who is an ancient time monarch figure and the sculpture is made in bronze. At the center of this forecourt, it’s the point zero marker originating in the Middle Ages to make the parvis the very center place for the purpose of measuring travel distance. It’s also used for the National Route System to mark the starting point of 14 radiating roads from Paris throughout France.

The small island around Notre Dame is called Île de la Cité in French, it’s literally the birthplace of Paris sitting in the middle of the river, where the sparkles of history are shown with archaeological discoveries and remains over the course of centuries. The capital of France is admired for its long history of 1800 years and a vast underground world with historic tunnels all over the city. Stretching nearly 280km (about 174miles) in total, it’s an unparalleled construction from the 18th century to create the sewers and repurpose the subterranean spaces for various needs over times, including the combats against the city’s regular and deadly epidemics. Now it’s also a very popular tourist attraction to show the city’s past on a journey through time.

Under the parvis, the enduring legacy of past is dated back to Antiquity with an archaeological crypt, which is the most important one in Europe to display and preserve the remains from the past 2000 years of history, even from the prehistory of Paris. Naturally becoming an onsite museum of 1000ft² at the foot of Notre Dame, it contains a number of monumental relics discovered during excavations in the 1960s-70s. From ancient to modern times, there are the ruins of Parisian port, Medieval streets, found objects and foundations of the ancient Roman town, plus recovered artifacts like Mammoth tusks, swords and spears etc.

The classical past of old Paris is relived here with the historical memories, bring them to life is a demonstration that the City of Light has never ceased to rebuild itself through the urban and architectural evolution.