Progress report for the reconstruction of the spire of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral – This week, the wooden stool, that is to say the base on which the spire rests, was mounted on the ground by the carpenters in a workshop in Meurthe-et-Moselle. It’s a kind of rehearsal before the parts are dismantled one by one, then transported in the next few days to Paris for the final assembly on the cathedral.
Almost four years after the cathedral fire, soon we will see in the sky of Paris the arrow and its rooster “Rejoiced this week General Jean-Louis Georgelin, appointed by President Emmanuel Macron to lead the restoration of Notre-Dame.
The president of the Rebâtir public institution Notre Dame de Paris, was present during this blank assembly. He rejoices, at the microphone of Lucie Bouteloupcompany service, that the schedule is respected.
” It is satisfying to see that we are keeping the commitment that was made. There was a lot of skepticism at the start: five years is madness, etc., they’re not going to make it… well, we’re showing that with patience, with tenacity, by making everyone work world, we’re getting there.
It is the result of the work of architects who have done all their studies, of companies, of groups, and of us, the public agency, who coordinate all that, and it works. It will be reassembled in the coming weeks, so that on April 15, 2023, four years after the fire, we will have put the spire stool back in its place, above the skeleton of the vault of the transept crossing. . We will resume the construction of the scaffolding, which currently is stopped at 33 meters, and which will culminate at 100 meters, until we manage to put the rooster, and at the end of 2023, we will see in the sky of Paris, the arrow and its rooster. »
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The spire, which will be 66 meters high like its 19th century model, is made up of five parts, including the famous “stool”, its base on four supports made from exceptional oak, which alone weighs 80 tonnes. It will be identical to the one that collapsed in the fire of April 15, 2019; and will also culminate at 96 meters from the ground, with the same original materials, oak for the structure (220 tons) and lead for the cover and ornaments (140 tons).
Construction of the spire will begin on site as soon as the four freestone arches, which form the vault of the transept at the heart of the cathedral, have been rebuilt. The reopening of the cathedral is scheduled for the end of 2024, according to the Ministry of Culture.
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(and with AFP)