More than 1500 delegates from across the world—including United States First Lady Jill Biden, President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Prince William, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni—have gathered to celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame de Paris, more than five years after it was burnt down.
Speaking from inside the cathedral, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed gratitude to the French nation:
“Tonight, the bells of Notre Dame are ringing again. And in a moment, the organ will awaken,” sending the “music of hope” throughout France and the world beyond.”
French President Emmanuel Macron from inside the cathedral.
The cathedral, a landmark of Gothic architecture in the heart of France’s capital, was built in 1260 AD and has stood for 850 years. At its peak, before the fire, it attracted more visitors than the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre.
How Notre Dame fully traced all French Oaks used in the restoration
In April, Wood Central revealed that more than 500 carpenters, stonemasons, scaffolders, sculptures, gliders, and glassmakers were involved in the reconstruction of the roof and frame (appropriately known as “the forest”) – with timbers came from more than 175 French forests and 35 sawmills, each carrying full PEFC certification.
In total, more than 1500 French Oak trees have been used to fully restore the roof, spire, internal nave, and choir. The project pays tribute to the astounding craftsmanship of the cathedral’s original builders and ensures that the centuries-old art of hand-fashioning wood lives on.
“We want to restore this cathedral as it was built in the Middle Ages,” according to the late Jean-Louis Georgelin, who in 2019 said, “It is a way to be faithful to the [handiwork] of all the people who built all the extraordinary monuments in France.”
Last year, Wood Central reported that hundreds of PEFC-certified trees were meticulously selected, with global artisans and carpenters combining Middle Age carpentry and modern 3D technology to reconstruct the spire piece by piece – with the 80-tonne spire and new timber framework transported along the River Seine in barges and fitted to the cathedral “like a giant jigsaw puzzle.”
“Traditional carpenters had a lot of that in their heads,” according to Peter Henrikson, a US-based carpenter who has been working for more than three years to turn the PEFC-certified timber into the new wooden framework. “[It’s] pretty amazing to think about how they did this with what they had, the tools and technology they had at the time.”
Though Notre Dame will reopen to the public on Sunday (today), with its first public mass, much of the construction will continue for years. Wood Central understands that a criminal investigation into what started the fire is about to be completed, but so far, no cause has been cited, and an indictment hasn’t been issued from the Paris prosecutor’s office.
- For more information about the Notre-Dame restoration, visit Wood Central’s special features on the construction of the cathedral’s choir, the construction of the wooden spire, the installation of the trusses over the cathedral roof, guidelines for carpenters working in the cathedral, and the Golden Rooster, which now stands atop the cathedral spire.
