On April 15, 2019, flames engulfed Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral reigniting a fierce debate which had already happened over a century ago about its restoration and what it really means to “rebuild Notre Dame”.

In this volume, the writer and Rodin scholar Rachel Corbett selects excerpts from the famous sculptor’s book Cathedrals of France, first published in 1914, just before the bombings of World War I.

Cathedrals were central to the way Rodin thought about his art: he saw them as visual metaphors for the human figure, among the finest examples of craftsmanship known to modern man, and as a model for how to live and work—slowly, brick by brick.

Cathedrals of France was an attempt to preserve these iconic buildings and The Cathedral Is Dying is a reminder—as is the tragedy of Notre Dame—of why we ought to appreciate these feats of architecture, whether or not they are still standing today.