Notre-Dame Cathedral: An Immersive Experience

Visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, are invited to step inside an ethereal, dream-like depiction of Notre-Dame, where digital renderings suggest the devastating April 2019 fire and the subsequent damage, while also alluding to the extraordinary efforts undertaken to restore the structure. 

In Paris, the iconic Gothic cathedral will reopen to the public on December 7 and 8, 2024. The MFAH is celebrating this historic moment with Notre-Dame Cathedral: An Immersive Experience, in the Museum’s spacious Cullinan Hall. 

The MFAH experience is created by Ars Electronica in partnership with French start-ups Iconem and Histovery. The presentation employs point cloud data compiled by the late, renowned Belgian art historian and Vassar College professor Andrew Tallon, who created three-dimensional laser scans of the cathedral in 2010. This information, in addition to supplemental material by Histovery, proved instrumental in guiding the reconstruction of the cathedral. 

Over the past five years, a team of nearly 2,000 professionals—including conservators, carpenters, glassmakers, locksmiths, engineers, and scaffolding experts—has worked both on-site and in workshops across France to restore Notre-Dame. The MFAH presentation showcases a digital walkthrough of the legendary architectural features of the cathedral, including its famed stained-glass windows, and helps to highlight the role of new technologies in preserving and communicating humanity’s cultural heritage. 
 

Still image of digital rendering of Notre-Dame Cathedral, Ars Electronica.