Gothic resilience: Thomas van Houtryve's 14-year vision of Paris's icon

AUSTIN, TX.- Tomas van Houtryve’s 36 Views of Notre Dame is a luminous love letter in photographs—one that captures history, loss, and rebirth in a single elegant volume. When fire ravaged the Paris cathedral on 15 April 2019, the world gasped. Van Houtryve had already spent a decade and a half circling, climbing, and hovering above the monument, interpreting its surfaces through virtually every photographic medium available. This book gathers those visions, allowing readers to experience the building’s grandeur before the blaze and its raw vulnerability in the aftermath.

Echoing Katsushika Hokusai’s Thirty‑six Views of Mount Fuji, the photographer anchors each plate on Notre Dame while the city, the seasons, and technology whirl around it. Snow squeaks underfoot on the Quai de la Tournelle; Bastille Day fireworks burst behind the twin bell towers; a drone peers straight down into the transept like a curious sparrow. Wet‑collodion tintypes lend the towers a molten glow, whereas crisp digital captures reveal every chisel mark on the stone. The result is not a mere catalogue of angles but a meditation on how a single monument can mirror France’s shifting identity—from medieval piety to mass‑tourism backdrop.

Van Houtryve interleaves his images with a rich archival layer that deepens the conversation: Victor Hugo’s thunderous prose, nineteenth‑century stereographs, and flea‑market holiday snapshots all appear in dialogue with the contemporary frames. This collage clarifies what Notre Dame has long been—an idea as much as a building—while preventing the book from lapsing into pure nostalgia. When we finally reach the photographs made days after the fire—charred timbers strewn across the nave, daylight punching through scorched vaults—the shock is amplified by all the serene moments that precede it. Yet the sequence closes not in despair but in quiet determination, mirroring the reconstruction now under way.

Production values match the ambition. The 8.5 × 11‑inch hardcover opens wide enough to command a lap without hogging a table, while its lightly textured stock lends a tactile pleasure that suits the subject. Subtle duotone reproduction preserves the velvety blacks of silver‑gelatin prints and the cyanotype’s cool blues. Essays by curator Pauline Vermare, placed at the back so the photographic narrative remains uninterrupted, provide brisk, insightful context in both English and French. Even the endpapers—sea‑green tracings of Gothic buttresses—feel considered rather than decorative.

The book’s greatest strength is its refusal to romanticize. Many Notre Dame titles lean on postcard prettiness; van Houtryve, a Magnum‑trained documentarian, seeks complexity. His drone views recall military reconnaissance, reminding us that great cathedrals were both houses of worship and fortresses of power. Long‑exposure night scenes render the façade as a glowing circuit board, hinting at the surveillance networks and tourist economies now grafted onto medieval stone. These conceptual flashes elevate the work beyond “pretty picture” territory and invite rereading.

Emotionally, the sequencing is masterful. We begin at a distance—the cathedral dwarfed by glass office towers—and end in intimacy: a mason’s calloused hands cradling a freshly carved gargoyle. Between those poles flows a symphony of light and time. For anyone who felt helpless watching televised flames, this slow, deliberate journey offers solace, reminding us that architecture, like humanity, can heal.

The bilingual design is another quiet triumph. Captions glide effortlessly between English and French, using subtle typographic cues rather than clunky line breaks, so readers practicing either language can move between them with ease. That accessibility broadens the book’s reach and, in a subtle way, honors Notre Dame’s role as both national emblem and global pilgrimage site.

Who should consider adding this volume to their shelves? Students of photography will feast on the technical range: wet‑plate, infrared, cyanotype, drone stills, 35 mm film. Historians will appreciate the dialogue with Hugo and the early stereographs. Paris lovers, deprived of cathedral visits until the projected 2026 reopening, will find it a tactile substitute. At sixty dollars, the unsigned trade edition is a bargain for 164 pages of museum‑quality printing; the signed version will delight collectors and likely prove a sound investment.

In an era of disposable images and algorithmic feeds, 36 Views of Notre Dame stands as a potent reminder that photographs can be witness, elegy, and blueprint all at once. Tomas van Houtryve has built an altar of silver, salt, and pixel, inviting us to linger and look hard. By the final turn of the page, one feels not only the endurance of stone and timber but the resilience of art itself—a fitting tribute to a cathedral that has survived revolutions, wars, and now, a devastating fire. Highly recommended.