A company associated with Orange will offer a virtual reality tour of Notre Dame de Paris in the car park located below the front yard, during the reconstruction work of the cathedral that burned down in 2019, Paris Council Friday.
In this underground car park, unused since the fire, and which is supposed to eventually become a reception place for visitors to the restored cathedral, Amaclio Productions, which specializes in creating multimedia shows that promote the heritage, will present a 40-45 minute tour.
30 euros per visit
The visit will cost the entirety of 30 euros, Amaklio told AFP, specifying that 30% of the value of the works will be donated to rebuild the cathedral.
Equipped with a helmet and “with the guidance of a virtual facility builder,” visitors will “believe that they are moving around the building and its surroundings, at different periods in its history,” as City Council explains in its circulation project.
The agreement for occupancy of the public domain, valid until the end of 2024, aims to “revive the spirit of the places associated with the City of Notre Dame during the works”, emphasized Karen Rolland, PS Culture Assistant to Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. .
This project was favored over that of Kleber Rousillon, Director of Cultural Sites who proposed an “underground reconstruction of the courtyard and quarter of the cathedral before the demolition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” with a “sound and light show”.
150,000 visitors are expected annually
Environmentalists, Parisian allies of Anne Hidalgo, abstained, criticizing with Corinne Fogeron’s voice a procedure “without a call for bids or jury”, and limiting themselves to “draft deliberations where selection is reduced to support, opposition, or abstention”. Karen Rowland, having received a spontaneous expression of interest from Amaclio at the beginning of the year, replied that “the city opened a call for applications” when “it was not at all mandatory.”
Boris Gamet Fournier, Consultant (PS and related) from the Paris Centre, defended choosing a “more solid” project because it was “more comprehensive”, “easier to implement” with “less significant” and “less risky” shifts to the financial plan .
Amaclio will already pay a flat annual fee of €50,000, “more reassuring to the city” according to Boris Jamet Fournier, to which a variable annual portion is added 6% of tickets.
Amaclio, which expects about 150,000 visitors a year in groups of 50, hopes to open the parking lot to visitors “as soon as possible.” The three-year agreement can be renewed until the end of 2025.
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