Notre Dame re-opens this weekend after the April 2019 fire that almost destroyed the cathedral. In past 5 years, 250+ companies and 100s of artisans worked to restore the 861-year old cathedral based on original building plans: ▫️ OG tools: Craft-people made hand-forged axes. Stonemasons used chisels. Sculptors used traditional brushes. ▫️Arch Roof: Over 2,000 oak trees from French forests used to rebuild roof (using medieval ax cutting techniques). ▫️Transept crossing: Ultrasonic scans were used to see how medieval masonry work was done and arch was rebuilt stone by stone. ▫️Grand Organ: Frances’s largest organ had its 8,000 pipes removed and cleaned. There are some necessary modern touches, including a new water-misting system in roof to fight future fires. While owned by the French state, the reconstruction effort was funded in large part by $900m+ from France’s three richest families (LVMH, Kering and L’Oreal). There were small donations from over 300,000 individuals, too. Of course, Notre Dame has been the site of many of France’s most historical moments: ▫️1558: Mary, Queen of Scots married Francis, Dauphin of France. ▫️1804: Napoleon crowned himself Emperor. ▫️1909: Pope Pius X beatified Joan of Arc (she was later canonized for wrongful judgment in 1450s). Symbolically, the front of Notre Dame is known as “Paris point zero” and is the point from which the rest of France is measured from. The urgency to rebuild the world’s most famous gothic church is not surprising (see 1:31 mark for renovated inside tour). Prior to the fire, Notre Dame was the most visited stricture in the country with 12m+ tourists seeing it a year (more than Louvre or Eiffel Tower). *** NYT has a great profile: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/world/europe/notre-dame-paris-france.html AFP tour video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=dK67qXzRMNmHfnLE&v=uJ0f_HzODfM&feature=youtu.be
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