Chief architect of Notre Dame restoration recounts monumental repair
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- On March 10, France’s Chief Architect of Historic Monuments Phillip Villeneuve detailed the 5-year effort to restore Notre Dame after it caught fire in 2019.
- Sharing the stage with Villeneuve was World Monuments Fund President and CEO Bénédicte de Montlaur and Barry Bergdoll, professor of Art History and Archeology at Columbia University.
When France’s Chief Architect for Historic Monuments Phillippe Villeneuve surveyed the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris a day after it was ravaged by fire six years ago, he was filled with anxiety.
Today, Villeneuve’s anxiety has been replaced by happiness.
In a March 10 discussion at the Society of the Four Arts with World Monuments Fund President and CEO Bénédicte de Montlaur and Barry Bergdoll, professor of Art History and Archeology at Columbia University, Villeneuve detailed the historic effort he led to restore the 862-year-old cathedral.
The fire had burned large portions of the Notre Dame’s centuries-old timber roof, causing its lead-covered spire to collapse into the knave, destroying the floor and dispersing toxic lead dust throughout the interior.
The restoration project began with reinforcing Notre-Dame’s North and South facades, flying buttresses and remaining ceiling vaults, along with draping the roof with a temporary cover, Villeneuve said.
Over the course of five years, Villeneuve led a project de Montlaur described as “30 restoration projects in one.”
“Who would’ve thought on that tragic day, April 15, 2019, that not even six years later, we would be talking about a work that had been completed,” Bergdoll told the crowd that included French Consul General Raphaël Trapp, who is based in Miami.
Private individuals and companies donated more than $800 million to pay for the restoration, de Montlaur said, adding that “the number one country to give … outside of France, was the U.S.”
After securing the building’s facades, the restoration team removed the burnt scaffolding that was installed as part of a previous project to restore the cathedral’s famous spire.
Villeneuve, who has held the position of chief architect since 2013, said he ordered the scaffolding to be anchored on the cathedral’s walls instead of its roof.
Thanks to that choice, the scaffolding remained anchored while the surrounding roof and spire collapsed, he said.
To ensure the team’s safety from the toxic lead dust, Villeneuve said robots were used to remove the remnants of the roof and spire in the cathedral’s knave. After that, the team filled the cathedral’s interior with scaffolding, to help support the structure, he said.
Throughout his presentation, Villeneuve noted his hybrid approach to restoration, which combined contemporary technology to clean the cathedral and model the repairs, while incorporating medieval techniques to repair and rebuild the damaged cathedral.
For example, when the Villeneuve’s team cleaned the cathedral’s soot and lead dust covered walls, they used industrial vacuums as well as a latex mold, that when peeled, removed centuries-worth of blemishes to reveal the original color of the stone, he said.
However, when it came to rebuilding Notre Dame’s framework, Villeneuve said his team used the same techniques the original medieval workers employed.
He told the audience the choice was done “to do Notre Dame exactly as it was before the fire.”
While plenty of architects proposed rebuilding the cathedral’s framework with steel or carbon fiber, Villeneuve noted that the original wood framework had remained strong for the last eight centuries.
However, Villeneuve did make some additions to the cathedral. Most notably, the original patinaed rooster that had crowned spire was replaced with a golden rooster he designed.
The rooster has long been the national emblem of France. The rooster atop Notre Dame is of special importance to French Catholics because it houses three invaluable religious relics: a piece of Jesus Christ’s crown of thorns, a relic of Saint Denis of Paris and a relic of Saint Geneviève of Paris.
Villeneuve said though the original rooster sustained significant damage, the fact it and the relics survived the fire was nothing short of a miracle.
The golden phoenix-like rooster is an ode to restoration project, he said.
He also placed a new item inside the rooster — a list of every person who worked on the restoration project.
“I wanted everybody, from the highest or lowest (role) to have a place in this rooster,” he said. “So, for me it’s very important to express my congratulations and my love for all of these companions.”
Notre Dame reopened Dec. 7 with a celebration that was attended by 1,500 dignitaries, including then President-elect Donald Trump, former U.S. first lady Jill Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Dreyfoos graduate Nadine Sierra sang the French national anthem during the ceremony after being personally selected by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at [email protected].
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