100% creation offers you a special series, in 9 episodes, “The rebuilders of Notre-Dame”. Five years after the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris, we invite you to meet companions, craftsmen or designers who worked on this renovation and on this emblematic site. For this first episode, we introduce you to the secrets of the scaffolding profession with Didier Cuiset, director of Europe Échafaudage and Mehdi Porcq, works manager for the same company.
At Notre-Dame, scaffolders erected and dismantled hundreds of tons of scaffolding necessary for its reconstruction.
When we saw everything that collapsed, in terms of the vaults and even the walls that were falling away and we saw our scaffolding still standing, it was a great satisfaction.
Mehdi Porcq, works manager Europe Scaffolding
Some people like engineers or others said that if this scaffolding had fallen, so would the cathedral! Somehow, all this scaffolding replaced the weight of the roofing of the frame and held everything together. So the scaffolding there would have fallen, the walls, everything would have gone with it.
Didier Cuiset, director of Europe Échafaudage.
Born in Metz, in Moselle, in eastern France, Didier Cuiset climbed the ranks for 40 years. From assistant fitter to director, today, of Europe Échafaudage, his career illustrates professional development through specific know-how. The importance of courage, physical fitness and a certain taste for assembly are elements of its success.
The scaffolder, a profession often unknown and underestimated, is proving to be a pillar in the reconstruction of the Notre-Dame de Paris construction site. At the head of a team of around forty scaffolding experts, Didier Cuiset recounts the challenges, discoveries and human importance that marked this incredible adventure. “ I arrived the evening of the fire. The next morning, we returned inside the cathedral with the chief architect, Mr. Villeneuve, the firefighters, in order to immediately examine what was happening. I had in mind to go towards the scaffolding to try to observe and see what was happening. To tell you the urgency, we had to fret [consolider] the north gable wall at night, then we did it again the next night. We urgently had to hold on to that pinion so it wouldn’t fall. I had to go to bed after 64 hours. »
“ There was the story of the scaffolding being set on fire and I reacted with adrenaline. I don’t know. I asked my guys who wanted to follow me up there to reinforce the legs of the scaffolding so that it wouldn’t collapse. Nobody asked any questions. They all followed. We reinforced all this scaffolding so it wouldn’t fall. Then we put sensors to monitor it. We must still realize that the fire affected wood. There were no deaths, no injuries, so it was not the time to cause injury to us or others or for anything to happen afterwards. »
For Didier Cuiset, scaffolding is a technical and ephemeral art. A well-designed scaffolding is a real mechanic which, with care, dresses the monuments without disfiguring them. “ A scaffold is not a pile of scrap metal. No matter what monument you make, you also need to give it look, style and class. Don’t hesitate sometimes to add posts so that it has its beautiful shape. It’s like Notre-Dame, I always said, the scaffolding around the spire, we just have to put some net on it and then we will have made the bride’s veil. It has to be equipped, but it has to be beautiful to the eye too. We are here to beautify. Realize it, tourists, and all citizens will already be deprived of this monument for a given moment. If we also make a pile of scrap metal for them like that in front! No, it has to be useful and beautiful. »
For Mehdi Porcq, works manager, the first challenge to overcome was dismantling the burnt scaffolding. A delicate process with the rigor of precise protocols, carried out in collaboration with all the players present on the site, from firefighters to architects. The emergency united them with a common goal: to preserve Notre-Dame and bring it back to life. Mehdi Porcq: “ I was still site manager at the time, I was mainly responsible for dismantling the burned scaffolding, with three baskets which were arranged around the cathedral, 90 meter pods with an articulated arm which allowed us to go into the heart of the burned scaffolding. From there we could take it apart with a hammer. I was there before the fire to set up the spire. The week this happened, I was not at Notre-Dame, I was on another construction site. I was called back to come back and do emergency work. My colleagues all called me in panic, I thought it was a joke, at first, quite honestly. I turn on the TV. When I saw the fire on TV, no, it wasn’t a joke. Everything we had done before went up in smoke. It was hard, complicated. Well afterwards, we all got back to work, we are all moving forward together. We will finish what we started. »
On the construction site, the teams do not count their efforts. Two thousand tonnes of material were installed to restore and support the cathedral’s vaults after the fire which ravaged its roof. With their rigorous methodology, the scaffolders ensure the safety of both men and women as well as that of the monument. Didier Cuiset: “ While we were dismantling the burned scaffolding, no one saw it, but we already had teams inside who were climbing inside since there was a risk of the vaults collapsing. We were at the same time on the burned scaffolding and at the same time on the collapse of the vaults, and at the same time, on the exterior access towers to lead inside, therefore a multitude of scaffolding. At one point, between interiors and exteriors, we must have had between 3,000 and 3,500 tons of material. You roughly divide by ten kilos, you have 350,000 parts that have been assembled. Knowing that we, what we assemble, we must disassemble. A frame or a roof remains, we dismantle the scaffolding. It’s ephemeral art. »
Working at Notre-Dame is both an honor and a burden, according to Didier Cuiset. Despite the challenges and trials, motivation has always been there, synonymous with pride. Didier Cuiset: “ Notre-Dame, for me personally, there was the damage from the fire of course, but it was still minimal, I think. Because you know, when you go into the cathedral the next day and you look at everything, you say to yourself, a lot of things are not touched, yes, there is a pile of mud in the middle, on the ground, there is the vault, but frankly, there’s nothing else affected. It was still incredible! You should still know that the cathedral was very damaged before the fire. We know it, since we went up there. You had flying buttresses and the stones that fell, they were very damaged. Obviously, there will be scaffolding outside, this will be to carry out work and continue the work which was not at all due to the fire. The cathedral will be even more magnificent. »
“ This is an extraordinary project. Human side, technical side. We must remember that technically, when we set up at level zero, there must not be one of these posts hitting a piece of framework. Because the pole that is in the way is 27 meters lower! There is therefore no longer any possibility of disassembly. Little by little, we climbed almost ten meters high in front of the carpenters. So you have an empty scaffolding ten meters high. And in the evening, the carpenters came with the wood to assemble them inside the scaffolding, it’s like a cocoon around them, so that they can work inside. The profession of scaffolder, for me, will never go away because we will always need scaffolders and I am happy to participate in things which allow us to redo our monuments, to restore them so that they are still present for the future generations. We benefited from it and I want them to benefit from it too. »
Find all the episodes of 100% Création on:
Apple Podcast Castbox Deezer Google Podcast Addict Podcast Spotifyor any other platform via the RSS feed.