
On Saturday 7 December, a grand ceremony was held at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris to mark its reopening. The fire on 15 April 2019 caused extensive damage to the building, which almost collapsed. It was only the rapid intervention of the fire brigade that limited the disaster. The destruction was followed by the long process of rebuilding and restoring Notre-Dame.
You can now (re)discover the cathedral and its restored interior. The building’s long history has made it a place of power and celebration, and it was in and around Notre-Dame that the great events of French history took place, which you can discover on TimeStreet.
The five years of construction work have enabled researchers to make numerous discoveries about the history of the monument, the construction techniques used and the history of the site, thanks to the excavations carried out by the Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives, the French national institute for preventive archaeological research.
The Île de la Cité has been inhabited since Antiquity, and the discoveries have enabled more precise dating, with the discovery of remains of dwellings from the Late Empire, and buildings from the Carolingian period through to the Middle Ages. The occupation of the site is now better known, as is the evolution of the building itself and its adaptation to liturgical needs.
Most impressive is the discovery of a 13th-century rood screen, an ornate wall that separated the laity from the clergy for prayer. The rood screen was known from writings and inscriptions, but the excavation of fragments has enabled us to gain a better understanding of its appearance and colours. Separating the choir from the rest of the building, the rood screen was covered with sculptures depicting the story of Christ and evoking the ceremony that took place behind it. The architectural ensemble was preserved for a long time, but underwent several transformations to adapt it to contemporary tastes, until it was destroyed in 1792, during the revolutionary period. Fragments of the statuary were restored to fix the paintwork. All these discoveries have enriched our knowledge of the cathedral, and raised awareness of the importance of rethinking heritage protection techniques.
The work was carried out in two phases, as Notre-Dame, deeply weakened by the fire, first had to be secured and consolidated before the teams could begin to venture into the building. The restoration of Notre Dame was the subject of much debate, and proposals to replace Viollet le Duc’s spire with a modern version were roundly rejected. The decision was taken to restore the cathedral to its original state, before the fire in 2019, which is in line with the deontology in the field of heritage and restoration established by the Venice Charter of 1964.
But this decision also freezes the building in its nineteenth-century appearance, and the many changes made to Notre Dame de Paris. The choices made during this period, notably by the architect Eugène Viollet-le-duc, are a reminder of the evolution of tastes and practices, the history of monuments and the relationship of contemporaries to their history.
Notre Dame is one of the emblematic buildings of Paris that you can discover on TimeStreet France!
Source:
https://notre-dame-de-paris.culture.gouv.fr/fr/la-preparation-de-la-restauration
https://www.inrap.fr/archeologie-de-notre-dame-de-paris-avancees-des-recherches-19536
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/patrimoine/incendie-de-notre-dame-de-paris/reouverture/reouverture-de-notre-dame-de-paris-le-risque-de-pollution-au-plomb-est-il-completement-ecarte_6918677.html