How Lausanne Celebrates the New Year: Burning the Cathedral

Our view of the cathedral’s faux burning to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Lausanne, Switzerland. January 1, 2019.

After the dramatic fire at Notre-Dame de Paris in 2018, you could think perhaps this tradition a little awkward:

The city of Lausanne fake-burns its medieval Gothic cathedral at midnight every New Year’s Eve.

The “burning” has happened since long before the Gothic Notre Dame in Paris burned, though, and the two cathedrals have no real links other than their roots in the Middle Ages and their style of architecture.

Well, and their name. An unfortunate coincidence: The cathedral in Lausanne is also named Notre Dame.

Why does Lausanne do this? Why would you burn the cathedral, even in pretend, to ring in the new year?

Alas, no one seems to have a definitive answer. An organization, called Les Amis de la Cité, started the fake cathedral-burning celebration in 1904 and has done it ever since (but for a two-year break in the early 2020s due to COVID restrictions).

The answer that comes around when I ask mentions the history of the cathedral as a watchtower for fires in the central city below it. (Lausanne’s built on a steep hill.) Due to the prevalence of fires among the town’s wooden houses in earlier eras, the cathedral had a lookout who would climb to the top of the bell tower to alert the town of any fires.

The lookout tradition at the cathedral in Lausanne started in 1405 and continues today, in fact. Between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., the lookout comes out onto the bell tower walkway on the hour and announces the hour in each cardinal direction. (I suppose a fire would get announced as well, though the days of fire alarms coming from the tops of cathedral bell towers has long passed.)

How does a lookout checking for fires in the city below the cathedral tie to the cathedral itself going up in flames (especially when the cathedral never seems to have suffered a fire, from what I can uncover)? Well, no one can really draw me a straight line there.

However, the faux-burning impressed me enough not to regret the very cold near-midnight hike up through Lausanne to the base of the cathedral to see it.

Shortly before the clock strikes 12 p.m., you hear the crackling of fire emanating from the cathedral, after which smoke begins wafting from the tower. Then the first signs of a reddish-orange glow appear from within—a glow that only increases in intensity until the tower does, indeed, appear to be on fire—though the entire effect comes through audio-visual effects. (Impressively realistic ones!)

While you stand in the cold and dark to watch the spectacle, you can at least buy snacks and warm beverages—mulled wine, hot chocolate, and tea—from market stalls venders have installed around the base of the cathedral for people who make the trek up to ring in the new year, Lausanne style.