The 450-tonne concrete gallery added to the cathedral in Angers in western France is designed to be a “harmonious dialogue” between the Middle Ages and the 21st century.
Critics, however, denounce it as a “wart” on the face of an edifice that is almost 1,000 years old.
The “quarrel of the ancients and the moderns”, as it has been described by Ouest-France, the regional daily, is raging before the inauguration of the 21m-long gallery that has been built to protect the western portal of Saint-Maurice Cathedral.
Catherine Pégard, the culture minister, is due to open the €5.5 million construction on Thursday.
Designed by Kengo Kuma, the Japanese architect responsible for Tokyo’s Olympic stadium, the structure is intended to preserve multicoloured sculptures dating from the 12th and 17th centuries.
The medieval relics, principally in blue, red and yellow with ochre that was added in the 1600s, were discovered when the cathedral was cleaned in 2009. Valérie Gaudard, who is in charge of historic monuments at the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs, told Libération newspaper that a polychromatic sculpture of this sort needed protection from the elements. “A little like a rug left in the sun, it loses its colour,” she said.
A porch covered the sculptures for centuries, but it was damaged by lightning in 1617 and pulled down in 1807. In 2020, Kuma was picked to replace it, although not with an exact replica that would have been little more than a “pastiche”, according to Christine Blanchet, an art historian.
“Our challenge was to create a harmonious dialogue between a contemporary creation whilst preserving Middle Age architectural heritage,” Kuma said on his website.
Kengo Kuma, the architect Simone Padovani/Getty Images for Qatar Creates
The old facade, left, was covered by a porch until 1807. An illustration of the new porch, right, whjch aims to protect medieval relics
He clearly believes he has succeeded, saying that his “on-site concrete precasting process … weaves a thread between past and present, lending the building a quiet contemporaneity rooted in the long continuum of architectural history”.
But Ouest-France likened the gallery to a “reinforced concrete UFO”. It said locals were unsure whether it was an “architectural jewel or a wart”.
“Opinions vary between perplexity, admiration and, more often, disapproval”.
Tribune Chrétienne, a right-wing Catholic website, described it as an “architectural massacre”.
The diocese of Angers defended the design, saying the cathedral had “always undergone improvements and expansions, notably in the 12th, 13th, 16th and 19th centuries”. It said Kuma’s structure was part of this “perpetual movement”.
Gaudard said critics were missing the point. “Its primary function is not to look pretty. Above all, it has a technical function as a climatic buffer.”