On April 15, 2019, millions watched in horror as a devastating fire engulfed the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, toppling the spire and destroying the wooden roof, along with heavy damage to the cathedral’s upper walls and vaults.
On Dec. 7 and 8, five years since that blaze, the cathedral will open its doors to visitors. French President Emmanuel Macron—who had promised that the rebuilding effort would be done in five years—will preside over its opening, and Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich will strike the doors of the cathedral with his staff and officially reopen the 861-year-old Gothic landmark.
Logan Connors, professor and chair of the Michele Bowman Underwood Department of Modern Languages and Literatures in the College of Arts and Sciences, watched the fire in disbelief along the Seine River, together with a group of University of Miami students on a UParis study abroad program.
“The cathedral has played an outsized role in determining Paris’ identity,” he said. “It is very old, from the 12th century, and it has been a sight visited by millions from outside of Paris. The fire was just a tremendous event, and the thought that it may not exist was just unimaginable.”
Notre Dame will come back to its former glory thanks to a meticulous, coordinated rebuilding effort by Rebâtir Notre-Dame de Paris and at a cost of $928 million. The effort brought together about 1,000 artisans from several countries, including the United States, to rebuild what was lost to the fire. These included master carpenters, engineers, glassmakers, stonemasons, sculptors, artists, and organ builders.
“These are highly specialized architects at the highest level of their skill, and in order to be one of those architects, you have to go through a gruesome education process,” said Jean-François Lejeune, professor at the School of Architecture. “They become architects of the national monuments of France. In the European context, the architects of the monuments of France are the best trained in the world.”
Those architects, as well as the artisans working on the cathedral, have extensive knowledge of Gothic cathedrals. Notre Dame is one of the best examples of that medieval style, which features flying buttresses, large windows, stone walls, slender columns, and ribbed vaults.
“When Notre Dame was built, they decided on a Gothic style because it was a new idea, and it allowed for large windows that not only tell stories but also allow for more light,” said Lejeune. “The challenge for the architect was to create a nave that would go very high, almost as if going to the sky, going to God.”
That challenge was met by building a nave that was made of strong stones and using the buttresses as support crutches as well as stone pillars to support the vaults, he said. To protect the nave, a sturdy wooden roof was created from mature oak trees from nearby forests.
In the fire, those features helped to mitigate the damage to some degree, said Lejeune.
“In the fire, the 19th-century neo-Gothic spire that capped at 300 feet collapsed on top of the vault, but most of the vault resisted even though some sections fell to the ground in the nave,” said Lejeune. He said that it was the strong craftsmanship of the original stonemasons and carpenters that caused that.
The rebuilding effort aimed to mostly recreate Notre Dame using the same methods as in medieval times, since they have proven so resilient. The carpenters returned to the surrounding woods around Paris to find oak trees more than 100 years old to rebuild the roof, said Lejeune.
“This is quite exceptional since it shows how nature is the real sustainable world,” he said. “You can find material that can be recycled and that will be resilient.”
News reports said that in the rebuilding of the cathedral, a combination of modern technologies and materials was used. These include the use of computers and 3D designs to create architectural and carpentry plans, the use of mechanical cranes, and the installation of water sprinklers. The organs and bells, which sustained some damage, were also removed and restored. Fortunately, the relics inside the church—which included the crown of thorns believed to have been used during Jesus Christ’s crucifixion—were removed during the fire by firemen and cathedral officials who created a human chain to safeguard the relics.
“It was literally a line of people connected to each other that transferred from hand-to-hand important items while the fire was already going,” said Lejeune. “The nave was still intact, so they were able to do it.”
There has been no evidence found that the fire was a deliberate act. After an extensive investigation, authorities believe that it may have been an electrical failure or a cigarette butt left behind under some scaffolding.
Notre Dame is expected to welcome 14 to 15 million visitors annually after reopening, compared to 12 million in 2017 before the fire, according to news reports.
