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Rebuilding Notre Dame Cathedral

Vanic
Vanic
26 January 2022
41
Rebuilding Notre Dame Cathedral

This spring will mark the 3-year anniversary of the devastating fire that destroyed the roof of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. A day after the inferno, President Emmanuel Macron announced to the world that within 5 years France would “rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral, more beautiful than ever”. Since then, the ambitious project has run into a series of setbacks and unforeseen sidetracks. In addition to raising the money needed to rebuild, organizers have employed hundreds of scientists, historical experts, and tradesmen to secure the site and put a restoration plan in place. In December, France’s National Heritage and Architecture Commission gave the green light for most of the proposed renovations. Now the process of recreating a new Notre Dame, which imitates the old, is in full swing, with a goal of opening to the public on April 16, 2024.

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Rennovation work in full swing, December 2021.

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Rennovation work in full swing, December 2021.

Witnessing a Cultural Disaster

On the evening of April 15, 2019, hundreds of thousands of people around the globe began streaming live footage of smoke billowing above the roof of Notre Dame. Shortly before sunset, flames could be seen breaching the rooftop’s surface. Within an hour, they had engulfed the cathedral’s ornate spire and brought it crashing down, provoking a collective worldwide gasp of horror. Unbeknownst to onlookers, the seemingly delicate steeple was covered with 250 tons of lead. When it collapsed, it left a gaping hole in Notre Dame’s roof, through which tumbled hundreds more tons of stone, lead, and metal scaffolding.

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Smoke and flames shoot skyward above Notre Dame de Paris, April 15, 2019. Photo: AP

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Smoke and flames shoot skyward above Notre Dame de Paris, April 15, 2019. Photo: AP

Securing a Hazardous Work Site

In the days following the collapse, inspectors began the months-long process of determining how best to prepare the site for the extensive renovations to come. Complicating their task were two extenuating factors. First, the remaining structure was tremendously weakened and in need of immediate reinforcement. Second, most of the lead had been vaporized by the heat of the flames. Experts estimate that fire temperatures reached 800-900 degrees C (1500-1650 degrees F), lifting tons of lead particles into the atmosphere. Much of the airborne lead drifted away from the cathedral, eventually settling on the streets of Paris and beyond. But there were also high levels of toxic lead dust covering all parts of the cathedral and debris.

Debris inside Notre Dame

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Debris inside the Notre Dame Cathedral after the fire. Photo: Christopher Petit Tesson

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Debris inside the Notre Dame Cathedral after the fire. Photo: Christopher Petit Tesson

Notre Dame’s massive pillars of stone give it the appearance of strength but the structure is actually quite fragile. Engineers and architects have never fully understood how masons of the 12th and 13th centuries managed to build an edifice that’s height well-exceeds those of its contemporaries. The vaults of Notre Dame’s ceiling are relatively thin, ranging from 20 to 30 centimeters thick. The extreme heat of the fire removed an additional 1-2 cm, warped many of the stones, and re-opened cracks that had been repaired in the 19th century. With its roof in tatters, the structural integrity of Notre Dame’s walls was imperiled—much of the building in danger of collapse.

Before any significant work could begin, engineers needed to construct massive wooden supports to secure the flying buttresses. These graceful arches on the exterior of the building prevent the walls from collapsing outward by counterbalancing the weight of the heavy vaulted ceiling. With the ceiling in ruins, however, the weight of the buttresses threatened to push the walls inward. While the buttresses may have a uniform appearance to the naked eye, they had warped in varied and inconsistent ways over the centuries. Hence, each flying buttress had to be closely studied to account for myriad eccentricities before building the wooden brace that would prevent its collapse.

Wooden braces under buttressesplace, their weight and location could complicate or endanger ongoing work.

Ironically, one of the hardest tasks was disassembling the steel scaffolding which had been installed to restore the spire prior to the fire. Some pieces lay in a heap within the cathedral. However, the portions that remained standing were twisted, unstable, and fused together. As such, the scaffolding was no longer simple to dismantle. Motion sensors were installed throughout the tangled lattice. These triggered regular false alarms, forcing evacuations of the building until safe conditions were re-established and workers could resume.

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Vanic
WRITTEN BY

Vanic

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching