Mass Culture, Simulacra and Architecture Competitions: An Approach to the Global Mosaic of Images for Notre-Dame de Paris

Abstract

This paper addresses a visual study of the media phenomenon that occurred after the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral and the impromptu announcement of an international architecture competition for its reconstruction by the French government. It provides an inventory of posts found worldwide on social networks with figurations of the monument that began to circulate virally through digital media. From this inventory, a mosaic approach based on McLuhan’s approach is proposed, which reveals the main lines of interest that all these images began to draw heuristically. This analytical document, both qualitative and quantitative, allows us to study the operations behind the complex assembly of virtual, material and symbolic elements in which the proposals appeared. Together with the discussion of its results, the role that this viral anomaly could have played in the outcome that transformed the procedure of the architecture competition into a mere simulacrum is assessed. Finally, the article evidences the consequent paradigm shift that the media introduces in the traditional consultation method, and how this has become a diverse space of cultural production for the global village.