Attention Architecture Nerds!

The Cathedral in Orléans, le Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d'Orleans, has an interesting back story. As the trained architectural eye will notice in these photos, the lower half of the front and all of the rest of the cathedral is in Gothic style, whereas the top half is strikingly in Baroque style.

The Front of the Cathedral, showing mostly the Baroque-style rotunda tops, but also a bit of the Gothic arches.

The rear of the Chapel, completely in Gothic style

The reason for this was the cathedral was originally constructed from 1278-1329 in the Gothic period. On the night of February 23, 1568, the cathedral was partially destroyed in the second war of religion. On April 18, 1601, the reconstruction of the destroyed tower began (after the 1598 Edict of Nantes ended the Wars of Religion in France between the French Catholics and French Protestants known as Huguenots) but not in the outmoded Gothic style. The end result is a unique building in two styles, separated (seemingly) at random, which tells a unique story.