Notre Dame is re-opening. But this isn’t the Notre Dame you remember

Reconstruction is part of Notre Dame’s DNA. The first stones of the cathedral were laid in 1163, built atop the ruins of two other churches during the rule of Louis VII. The structure took most of a century to complete and required two major restorations and additions in the 17th and 18th centuries. In fact, the 2019 fire was linked to a €6 million ($6.1 million USD) renovation project on the church’s spire by the Paris fire brigade.

But the Notre Dame of 2024 won’t look like the one you remember. Take a close look at the newly unveiled plans for the grounds and you’ll see that they don’t just take aesthetics into consideration—they also prepare for a changing climate. A cooling system that will flood the front square with thin sheets of cooling water will be built, and the plan adds 30 percent more vegetation, including trees to provide shade.

“A city like ours can no longer think outside of climate change,” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said at the press conference announcing the plans.

The Paris Diocese has been involved in the design and rebuilding process, but they aren’t the only ones making decisions—and, clearly, the religious concerns aren’t the only ones being taken into account. Funding for the project to rebuild the grounds is coming from the city, to address contemporary and future problems—like crowds and rising global temperatures—in addition to the building’s religious tradition.

The Belgian landscape architecture firm Bureau Bas Smets is leading the redesign of the new grounds following an international contest and public comment process. “Compressed and imbricated around the Cathedral, these spaces frame new views towards Notre Dame, establish a new relationship with the Seine and offer new activities,” the firm wrote in the project announcement.

What this means in practice is that the walls around the Jean XXIII Square park will be removed and the park will be extended to the banks of the Seine and merge with a garden running along the southern edge of the cathedral. The 1,300 feet of green open space will hopefully allow guests to flow more freely as they take in the Gothic architecture and iconic flying buttresses.

Finally, an underground parking lot will also be turned into an underground walkway as part of the rebuilding, which can be used to access a welcome center and archaeological museum.

On the whole, all parties seem okay with how things are going. “I am very pleased that the tragedy of the fire will enable us to recreate physical and symbolic ties between the capital and its urban environment,” Reverend Gilles Drouin, an advisor to Paris’ archbishop, told the New York Times.