On April 15, 2019, the world was aghast. People gazed in horror at their screens, and Parisians took to the streets to see for themselves as Notre Dame Cathedral burned out of control. As the fire raged on, French President Emmanuel Macron told AFP, “We will rebuild this cathedral.”
Smoke and flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019. Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images
More than two years later, the world watches in anticipation of the rebuilding and restoration of France’s great Gothic monument. In the years since the fire, there were suggestions that the 19th-century spire, which was completely destroyed, would be rebuilt with a new design using modern materials such as glass and steel. But that idea was scrapped. Instead, the spire will be rebuilt to the exact design as conceived by 19th-century French architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.
According to the American-based Friends of Notre Dame de Paris website, the restoration of Notre Dame will be to return the Gothic masterpiece to its “complete, coherent, and known” state prior to the fire.
Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame
Interestingly, in the 19th century, Notre Dame Cathedral was in a state of disrepair. When Victor Hugo wrote his masterpiece “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” he questioned Notre Dame Cathedral’s modern restoration efforts. He too wanted to preserve the Gothic beauty of the sacred monument.
“The church of Notre Dame de Paris is still no doubt, a majestic and sublime edifice. But, beautiful as it has been preserved in growing old, it is difficult not to sigh, not to wax indignant, before the numberless degradations and mutilations which time and men have both caused the venerable monument to suffer, without respect for Charlemagne, who laid its first stone, or for Philip Augustus, who laid the last,” Hugo wrote in the third book of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
“He was against the movement of the time that advocated leaving behind the classical constructions and opting for more modern elements,” Sylvie Robin, head heritage curator in the department of archeology at the Carnavalet Museum in Paris, told Euronews.
Just as Hugo did centuries ago, heritage building experts and enthusiasts today have stepped forward to help Notre Dame Cathedral’s restoration—this time from the ashes. It seems that people want Notre Dame to be returned to how they remember it. And traditional carpenters—both in France and America—have been helping the effort to stay true to Notre Dame’s medieval heritage.
As Hugo wrote in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation’s effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius. ...”
Before the fire: The Notre Dame Cathedral roof, known as "La Forêt" ("the Forest"), was constructed with 1,300 oak trees, some 300 to 400 years old. Notre-Dame de Paris/Maurice de Sully Association
Carpenters Without Borders
As most of the cathedral roof was destroyed in the 2019 fire, the French organization Carpenters Without Borders, along with members of the British organization The Carpenters Fellowship, took a week in July 2020 to re-create one of the roof trusses that once supported the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral. A truss is a structure formed by a series of triangles.
Lorraine Ferrier
Author
Lorraine Ferrier writes about fine arts and craftsmanship for The Epoch Times. She focuses on artists and artisans, primarily in North America and Europe, who imbue their works with beauty and traditional values. She's especially interested in giving a voice to the rare and lesser-known arts and crafts, in the hope that we can preserve our traditional art heritage. She lives and writes in a London suburb, in England.
