“The result is a tribute to all French people”

Knebworth, England, April 28, 2024

You could believe it was a miracle. As I write these lines, the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris for worship is scheduled for December 8, 2024. After the terrible fire which ravaged this building, it seemed impossible that the restoration could be carried out as well. quickly. But now, five years and eight months later, it’s done.

I went to Notre-Dame two months after the fire and had the privilege of benefiting from a guided tour by Philippe Villeneuve, chief architect of its restoration. A solid net had been stretched above the crossing of the transept to protect us from falling stones.

The scale of the destruction was harrowing, but I was surprised to note that the nave had suffered relatively little damage.

As in all Gothic churches, the vault, that is to say the ceiling, of Notre-Dame, is made of stone ribs separated by spaces filled with thin stones joined with mortar. The result looks like an eggshell.

This style of vault has spanned the centuries in thousands of churches in France, Great Britain and elsewhere. But like an eggshell, this construction is fragile.

I thought the fall of the spire would have caused the vault to collapse along the entire length of the nave. I was delighted to discover that only one bay of the nave had been seriously damaged. The rest was not badly damaged.

The work of medieval masons was more solid than I would have expected. The main task of the project manager was to stabilize the building. In a large church, the weight is carefully distributed between the pillars, walls and buttresses. Pressure and tension neutralize each other. The destruction of part of the structure compromises this balance and the building risks moving, thus causing further damage. Mr. Villeneuve had to avoid this.

In June 2019, he had already consolidated the most vulnerable elements of the cathedral with temporary timber reinforcements, the light brown of which stood out vividly against the sooty gray of the old stones.

At the same time, the building had to be sheltered from the elements to prevent rain, wind and snow from causing further damage.

The thorniest problem was that of the old scaffolding. Before the fire, extensive repairs had been undertaken to the spire, which was surrounded by a huge network of scaffolding. The fire had twisted and tangled the metal tubes, turning them into a Gordian knot of steel weighing a million tons.

It was obviously necessary to cut this structure and evacuate it in pieces. But moving a small section risked destabilizing the whole, causing terrible damage. It was therefore necessary to wrap and strap this tangle of steel to prevent it from moving. We then began, starting from the summit of Notre-Dame, to cut it into sections with extreme care, before an immense crane lifted them one by one to evacuate them.

It was only once this work was accomplished that the restoration could begin. The reconstruction of the spire required the felling of a thousand oak trees. We hired a thousand craftsmen: carpenters, masons, roofers, glaziers, ironworkers, and many others. The nave was filled with new scaffolding from the floor to the vault.

I began by calling this enterprise a miracle, but there was obviously nothing supernatural about it. It was the fruit of the talent and dedication of architects, craftsmen and workers, as well as the considerable contributions of generous French donors, such as Bernard Arnault. The result is a tribute to all French people.

I salute them all.