Notre-Dame de Paris

The shocking images of the fire at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, which marks its first anniversary on April 15, have sparked a desire to compile photographs of this highly symbolic structure from the invention of photography in the 19th century to the present day, including images of the blaze. Our collection, featuring photographs by Édouard Baldus, Charles Marville, Charles Nègre, Eugène Atget, André Kertész, and Thomas Struth, brings the viewer closer to Notre-Dame from all angles, further onto the roof with its magnificent views of the city, and into the strange world of the gargoyle figures, those water spouts that architect Viollet-le-Duc added to the cathedral in the 19th century as his personal vision of the Middle Ages. The dramatic conclusion is marked by images of the great fire that spread around the world on that April night in 2019, accompanied by texts from American medievalist Danny Smith and former Cologne Cathedral architect Barbara Schock-Werner.