On that note, around that time (during the revolutionary period, 1793), Liège (Belgium) disassembled their cathedral brick by brick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lambert%27s_Cathedral,_L...

A 3D rendering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTkk2P0KabA

A picture, google image has more, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sint-Lambertuskathed...

And as you point it out we don't think much about it these days (for better or worst).

That link is broken

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Si...

I think it's this one:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Si...

Thanks, I tried to be clever. The post now links to the media page instead of the picture.

There's an interesting point here somewhere about how a story being of greater cultural impact than the icon that it choose to portray. And yet most people would probably say that the icon itself, the cathedral, is of much greater cultural significance than the story. Or perhaps the two can't really be separated.