In April 2019, a devastating fire engulfed the 860-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral in Pars, severely damaging its wooden roof and leading to the collapse of the 19th-century spire, originally designed by Viollet-le-Duc. Immediately after, French President Emmanuel Macron promised that the iconic monument would be restored in just 5 years, an ambitious deadline. As the restoration of the roof structures nears completion, in February 2023, the scaffolding for the reconstruction of the spire has been assembled. The Spire is expected to be finished by the end of the month.
Built out of a wooden structure covered in lead sheath, the spire quickly caught fire during the 2019 incident. Its collapse seriously endangered the stability of the stone arches below, as the charred beams and molten metal fell through the gothic vaults over the church’s nave. For those who witnessed the event, the spire’s fall was one of the most memorable and devastating images.
The destructions caused by the fire led to an international debate on the correct approach for restoration, with several voices from the architecture and design community asking for a creative reimagining of the monument. While initially starting a competition for new ideas regarding the restoration, in May 2019 French authorities decided that the cathedral must be restored exactly how it was before the fire.
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Notre Dame to Receive New Landscape Design: Bas Smets Wins Competition to Reimagine the Cathedral's SurroundingsConsequently, the new spire will recreate French architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s design, including the wooden framework and lead sheathing. Its top will be marked by a cross and copper rooster, which is expected to be visible during the Paris Olympic Games. According to the New York Times, the cross has been hoisted above the top of the spire this week, with a new roster soon to follow.
While visiting the construction site, Mr. Macron announced that a contest would be held to replace six of the stained-glass windows with more contemporary ones. This visit marked the completion of what officials have called the second phase of the reconstruction, as the first phase was primarily concerned with stabilizing the cathedral’s structure.
Now, workers are beginning to disassemble the interior scaffolding from the nave and the choir, as the project is on track to reopen to the public on December 8, 2024. While restoration works will continue beyond this date, significant progress has been made. The interior walls were cleaned during the second half of 2022 using a new technology of applying a latex paste to the stonework and peeling it off a few days later, along with the attached dirt, dust, and soot. While the cleaning was successful in carefully restoring the stonework to its original light coloring, some critics claimed that the technique created a distorted image of the 850-year-old monument. The roof of Notre Dame, commonly referred to as La Forêt for its forest-like wooden structure, has also undergone extensive restorations, with new roof coverings expected to be added by next summer. For rebuilding the structure, 1,400 Frenc oak trees were used. Craftsmen trained in medieval woodworking, originally working on the Guédelon project, were also called to the site to ensure the proper use of medieval building techniques.
According to Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak’s statement, the Notre Dame cathedral is on course to open to the public in 2024, although some experts claim that the timeline is too short or the remaining restoration works. In June 2022, landscape designer Bas Smets was declared the winner of the competition to redesign the cathedral’s surroundings, including a reimagining of the underground parking spaces underneath the main plaza and the archeological crypt located behind the cathedral.
