Notre-Dame de Paris 2017-

Notre-Dame de Paris reopens on Saturday, 7 December

6 December
Notre-Dame unveiled
(WaPo) As the cathedral reopens, here’s [an interactive] look at what survived, what was restored and what’s new. The April 2019 fire damaged some parts of the cathedral irrevocably, though a feared collapse was averted. More than 2,000 architects, engineers and craftspeople using artisanal methods have worked to painstakingly re-create what was lost and restore what could be saved.
29 November-4 December
Macron lauds artisans for restoring Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris
Macron thanks workers, firefighters, donors for their help
President deeply impressed by renovation work
(Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron praised on Friday the more than 1,000 craftspeople who helped rebuild Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral in what he called “the project of the century”, five-and-a-half years after fire gutted the Gothic masterpiece.
The 12th-century cathedral, one of the French capital’s most beloved and visited monuments, will reopen its doors next week to tourists and to the Catholic faithful.
Meet the American Artisans Who Helped Resurrect Notre Dame
(Yahoo!) Because while the resurrection of this Gothic jewel is a nearly impossible realization of French President Emmanuel Macron’s five-year restoration pledge, it is also a testament to the continued artistry of some five dozen craftspeople who have kept ancient medieval skills alive in an age of modernized construction needs.
Notre-Dame (de Paris) is back – but not quite as you knew her
(CNN) …the numbers behind the reconstruction efforts are striking. Restoring the historic monument to its former state has cost an estimated €700 million ($737 million). … Overall, €846 million ($891 million) were raised in donations from 340,000 donors in 150 countries, with the extra funds used to restore other monuments. Beyond that, there are the materials used in its rebuilding: The tallest oak felled was 27 meters tall (88 feet high), 1,300 cubic meters of stone were replaced, 8,000 organ pipes (belonging to France’s largest instrument) cleaned and re-tuned, 1,500 solid oak pews hewed – all the work of 2,000 dedicated artisans.

8 December
Notre-Dame celebrates first mass in five years after devastating fire
Archbishop of Paris consecrates the cathedral’s new altar with perfumed oil to the sound of the restored organ
(The Guardian) Parisians, the French and the world rediscovered the breathtaking beauty of the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral on Saturday evening, five years after it was devastated by fire.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, led a guest list of international heads of state and other dignitaries including Donald Trump, the Prince of Wales, politicians and celebrities in lauding what he described as a triumph of the French nation in raising the monument from the ashes and making his country “united and proud”.
“The bells of Notre Dame ring again and the organ will be awoken. They are music of hope to Parisians, France and the world,” Macron told those gathered. “Those bells that have accompanied our history … and yet we might never have heard them again.”
…republicanism gave way to religion as the Catholic church reclaimed the resurrected cathedral for the first mass since the fire in 2019.
At the centre of the liturgy was the consecration of the cathedral’s new altar by Monsignor Laurent Ulrich, the archbishop of Paris.
“The pain of the 15 April 2019 is effaced … even if the astonishment caused by the fire will endure,” Ulrich told the congregation.
Macron had been expected to give his address on Saturday outside the entrance to Notre Dame to conform with France’s 1905 law on the separation of church and state and the religious neutrality of French heads of state. In the event, gale-force winds and rain forced him to deliver the speech inside the cathedral, the first time a president had done so.
In his speech he praised the firefighters who had saved the cathedral, particularly those who stopped the flames reaching the north bell tower, the destruction of which would almost certainly have brought the 13th-century structure down and destroyed the building.
Macron also mentioned Victor Hugo, whose 1831 novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, persuaded the French authorities to restore the then ruined cathedral a first time.

6 December
Ten key moments in the colossal five-year reconstruction of Notre-Dame Cathedral
In pictures
(France24) Notre-Dame will officially reopen Saturday [7 December] following a massive reconstruction effort after it was severely damaged by fire five years ago. President Emmanuel Macron will give a speech for the grand event set to be attended by dignitaries including US President-elect Donald Trump. FRANCE 24 takes a look back at the reconstruction of the iconic cathedral.

2 December
Notre Dame’s reopening will have solemn rituals, grand opera, heads of state and high security
(AP) — The reopening of Notre Dame this coming weekend is going to be a high-security affair, with a repeat of some measures used during the Paris Olympics and the sealing-off to tourists of the cathedral’s island location in the heart of the French capital.

29 November
Notre Dame Cathedral unveils its new interior 5 years after devastating fire
(AP) — After more than five years of frenetic, but sometimes interrupted, reconstruction work, Notre Dame Cathedral showed itself anew to the world Friday, with rebuilt soaring ceilings and creamy good-as-new stonework erasing somber memories of its devastating fire in 2019.
Wonderful photos

13 November
Macron to visit Notre Dame Cathedral before reopening after 2019 fire
French president to give ‘republican and secular’ speech outside monument days before it reopens to public
As firefighters doused the embers of the blaze that threatened to destroy Notre Dame Cathedral on 16 April 2019, Emmanuel Macron promised the church would be restored “more beautiful than ever” within five years.
In two weeks, the French president will visit the monument that has been returned to its former glory with the help of millions in donations and hundreds of specialist artisans using age-old skills.
His visit will come days before the cathedral is officially opened on 7 December in an international ceremony at which Macron will make a short speech from the courtyard outside the cathedral, maintaining France’s 1905 law outlining the separation of church and state.
“This speech will be addressed to all French people,” the Élysée Palace said on Wednesday. “It will be a republican and secular moment before a religious and musical moment in Notre-Dame”.

2021

15 April
Notre-Dame Cathedral fire: Two years on, how is restoration work going at the Paris landmark?
(Euronews) Two years since the devastating fire that nearly destroyed Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Gothic icon has still not been fully secured. …
[Monsignor Patrick] Chauvet added the actual restoration project could start officially by the end of the year, and he hopes mass can be held in 2024.
French President Emmanuel Macron has set that year as his goal for finishing the interior restoration for the cathedral, in line with when Paris will host the Olympics.
Securing the cathedral has been a necessary but costly first step of the process, estimated at €160 million. It involved removing the stained glass windows, checking the gargoyles, removing rubble and installing protective nets in the choir to catch falling stones.
It has been complicated by scaffolding that had been erected for renovation works prior to the blaze at the tourist attraction. The fire melted the scaffolding, leaving around 200-tonnes of tangled web of burnt metal to deal with.
Brand new scaffolding has now been installed so that the condition of the vaults can be studied closely.

9 March
French oaks from once-royal forest felled to rebuild Notre Dame spire
Trees to help replace spire destroyed in 2019 blaze found in Forest of Bercé that once belonged to French kings
Last July amid a public outcry, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, ended speculation that the 19th century peak designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc could be rebuilt in a modern style. He announced it would be rebuilt exactly as it was before. And that began a nationwide tree hunt, culminating in a painstaking selection in January and February of this year.
About 1,000 oaks in more than 200 French forests, both private and public, were chosen to make the frame of the cathedral transept and spire – destined to be admired on the Paris skyline for potentially hundreds of years.
On Tuesday, chainsaw-wielding tree surgeons in Bercé scaled the special oaks to fell them in a race against the clock. All 1,000 must be “harvested” by the end of March, otherwise harmful tree sap and moisture could enter the wood fibres.
Ken Follett gives book proceeds to French cathedral restoration fund
Author donates proceeds from book about Notre-Dame fire to project to save cathedral in Brittany
Follet is giving €148,000 (£127,000) towards a multimillion euro project to save Saint-Samson de Dol-de-Bretagne cathedral.
The sum is what he has made from his book Notre-Dame: a Short History of the Meaning of Cathedrals, written after the Paris monument was ravaged by fire in April 2019, which has sold 113,000 copies worldwide.

2020

9 July
Notre Dame spire must be rebuilt exactly as it was, says chief architect
After fierce debate about 19th-century spire, consensus builds over restoration of fire-torn cathedral
Reconstruction work must begin with the delicate removal of 50,000 tubes of twisted scaffolding at back of the edifice, a task that Jean-Louis Georgelin, the retired army general in charge of the project, said last month should be completed by September, allowing rebuilding work to begin early next year.
Macron has said he wants the cathedral restored to its former glory by 2024, in time for the Paris Olympics, a timetable Georgelin said was possible “if everyone rolls up their sleeves”, but the process has been plagued by delays due to bad weather, health concerns over lead pollution and, most recently, the coronavirus crisis.

2019

A Medieval Expert on the Symbolism of Notre-Dame and Hope for Its Future
Professor Nicholas Paul says losing the “collective effort” that went into the cathedral is a tragedy, but rebuilding is part of its history.
By Matt Stieb
(New York) The story of the Notre-Dame is the story of the city of Paris, the beating heart of medieval civilization. The church began to go up when the kingdom of France really for the first time began to exert itself on the European stage. The kingdom of France originated in the 10th century just on the Île de la Cité — the island in the Seine on which the Notre-Dame sits — and gradually radiated outward from France. I don’t think that’s a story you can tell about any other country. As a result, the Île de la Cité is super-significant to French history, and its most enduring point is Notre-Dame. The cathedral is a place of great innovation, particularly with music, where the concept of polyphony — voices singing in different pitches at the same time — entered the Western tradition. – April 2019

20 September
‘Lot of work’ before Notre Dame Cathedral rebuild can begin
(AP via Global) Notre Dame Cathedral has far to go to recover from a destructive fire but a hardy copper rooster that once topped the spire is serving as a reminder that all wasn’t lost. Roosters are a symbol of France. The small bird that adorned Notre Dame plunged to the ground in the April fire that collapsed the spire and consumed the roof. French Culture Minister Frank Riester says the rooster is a “witness to what happened in this terrible fire.”
Riester said Friday that work to stabilize the cathedral’s structure continues and reconstruction isn’t expected to start for at least a few months

18 April
France Debates How to Rebuild Notre-Dame, Weighing History and Modernity
(NYT) The ashes have barely settled from the devastating fire that tore through the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, but even as France paid tribute on Thursday to the firefighters who saved the structure and its relics, there was a growing debate about how the Gothic landmark should be rebuilt.
Workers are still focused largely on shoring up the damaged structure, but how closely the planned reconstruction should adhere to the original design and materials has become a point of contention in a nation long accustomed to arguing over the balance between modernity and cultural heritage.
President Emmanuel Macron gave the debate particular urgency when he said the cathedral would be rebuilt within five years, a time frame that some experts have called too optimistic. Some of Mr. Macron’s political opponents have even accused him of wanting to rush the restoration in order to have the cathedral ready in time for the 2024 Olympic Games, which will be held in Paris.
Franck Riester, the French culture minister, said on Thursday that the government would strive to meet the timeline set out by the president, but he also cautioned that rebuilding the cathedral could take more time.
The deluge of contributions — now centralized on a government platform — suggested that renovation efforts would not be hampered by a lack of funding. Instead, much of the debate has focused on whether the cathedral’s attic and spire should be rebuilt as they were or if newer materials, techniques and designs should be favored.
“Something contemporary will be safer and faster to rebuild,” said Christiane Schmuckle-Mollard, an architect who worked on the restoration of Strasbourg’s cathedral in the early 2000s.
Jean-Michel Wilmotte, a French architect who recently designed a Russian orthodox cathedral in Paris, told Franceinfo radio on Thursday that rebuilding a “pastiche” of the destroyed spire, which was added to the cathedral in the 19th century, would be “grotesque.”

16 April
What a massive clean-up lies ahead
Notre-Dame Photos: A Fire and Its Aftermath
The famed cathedral still stands, and a devastated France has one unwavering goal: It will be rebuilt.
(NYT) It is scorched, battered and missing its spire and much of its roof, but the 800-year-old Gothic masterwork that symbolized both a place and a culture is a monument to be repaired, not mourned.
photo credit: Ludovic Marin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Macron promises to rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral after fire, seeks international help
Macron said a national fundraising campaign to restore Notre-Dame would be launched Tuesday and he called on the world’s “greatest talents” to help.
“Let’s be proud, because we built this cathedral more than 800 years ago. We’ve built it and, throughout the centuries, let it grow and improved it, so I solemnly say tonight: we will rebuild it together,” he said.
France’s superrich join together to pledge over $675 million to help rebuild Notre-Dame, as donations flood in to save the devastated cathedral
By Tuesday afternoon, four separate donations of at least 100 million euros ($113 million) had been pledged to fund the rebuilding efforts.

Smoke billows near scaffolding as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier – RC1E4B43E280

Fire guts Paris’ Notre-Dame, but structure saved from destruction

(Reuters) – A massive fire consumed Notre-Dame Cathedral on Monday, gutting and destroying the roof of the Paris landmark and stunning France and the world, but firefighters said they had saved the shell of the stone structure from collapse.
As it burned into the evening, firefighters battled to prevent one of the main bell towers from collapsing. One firefighter was seriously injured – the only reported casualty.
“We now believe that the two towers of Notre-Dame have been saved,” Paris fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet told reporters at the scene. “We now consider that the main structure of Notre-Dame has been saved and preserved.”
Notre Dame fire: Macron promises to rebuild, but Paris monument suffers ‘colossal damage’
(WaPo) The spine-tingling, soul-lifting spire and roof of Notre Dame Cathedral were reduced to ash Monday, as a catastrophic fire spread through a building that has embodied the heart of Paris for more than 800 years.
The fire, which came during Christianity’s holiest week and was apparently accidental, left a smoldering stone shell where there had once been a peerless work of architecture, engineering and craftsmanship.
Cathedral spokesman Andre Finot told reporters that the building had sustained “colossal damage” and that the medieval wooden interior — a marvel that has inspired awe and wonder for the millions who have visited over the centuries — had been gutted.
The moment the spire began to fall. Picture: AbacaPress/SplashSource:Splash News Australia
Notre-Dame Is the Burning Heart of Paris
There is the sense that we have failed, as a civilization, to care for something priceless.
(NYT) In his address to the nation, Mr. Macron described what Parisians are feeling as a “tremblement intérieur” — an internal trembling. That’s an accurate description of our sense of emptiness and loss. There’s also a shared sadness and disappointment that, with the extensive damage, we’ve failed, as a civilization, to be the caretakers of something priceless. A hundred years from now, people will still be talking about the fire of 2019.
Mr. Macron vowed that France will rebuild Notre-Dame. First, we’ll have to put out the fire and see what remains.
The Atlantic: A massive fire erupted at Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral today. The nearly 900-year-old Gothic church, which is a tourist hub in the city and one of the most recognizable sites in Europe, was severely damaged—its spire toppling over and its roof collapsing. The photo editor Alan Taylor compiled these 16 photos of the licks of flame and billows of smoke that enveloped the church. For Parisians, the loss is nearly incomprehensible: For centuries, the church has survived a plague, the French Revolution, and Nazis—only to be felled by a senseless fire. “Built in the Gothic era, destroyed in the social-media era,” Rachel Donadio writes.
Fire Destroys Notre Dame Cathedral; ‘Nothing Will Remain From the Frame,’ Spokesman Says
Sudden inferno overtakes one of the world’s most-visited sites, bringing down the roof and spire as firefighters struggle to put out the blaze.

How and why could this happen?
Notre Dame Cathedral Is Crumbling. Who Will Help Save It?
(TIME) Under France’s strict secular laws, the government owns the cathedral, and the Catholic archdiocese of Paris uses it permanently for free. The priests for years believed the government should pay for repairs, since it owned the building. But under the terms of the government’s agreement, the archdiocese is responsible for Notre Dame’s upkeep, with the Ministry of Culture giving it about €2 million ($2.28 million) a year for that purpose. Staff say that money covers only basic repairs, far short of what is needed. Without a serious injection of cash, some believe, the building will not be safe for visitors in the future. Now the archdiocese is seeking help to save Notre Dame from yielding to the ravages of time. (27 July 2017)