World News – USA – The Rescue of Notre Dame documents efforts to rebuild the famous French cathedral

Jennifer Ouellette
– 25. November 2020, 6:05 p.m. UTC

On 15. April 2019, the world watched in horror as the roof of the famous Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris caught fire. The fire spread quickly and for a few hours it appeared as if this 850 year old Gothic masterpiece could be completely destroyed. In the early hours of the morning, the firefighters finally got the upper hand. Almost immediately after the fire was extinguished, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to rebuild Notre Dame.

But first the badly damaged structure had to be supported and stabilized, and interdisciplinary teams of scientists, engineers, architects and master craftsmen had to come together to find the best way to restore it. This year-long process, led by the chief architects Philippe Villeneuve and Remi Fromont, is the focus of a new NOVA documentary that premieres on PBS this evening. The Rescue of Notre Dame follows various experts as they examine the components of the cathedral’s iconic structure to figure out how best to repair it.

Director Joby Lubman was among those in horror when the fire broke out and stayed up all night as the cathedral burned until it became clear that the structure would ultimately survive, albeit badly damaged. The next morning in the office he said to Ars: « Everyone was a little shocked when they talked about it. « . « And it may sound opportunistic, but I thought, ‘The restoration of this icon is going to be pretty documentable. ‘ »

Lubman and his development team reached out to the relevant authorities and, within weeks, had meetings with scientists, architects, engineers and others who have combined their expertise to restore Notre Dame to its former glory. « It’s the ultimate restoration and a perfect synergy between science and history, » he said.

While Lubman never felt that he and his crew were really in danger, filming on location was a challenge due to the strict security protocols in place. Nobody was allowed to work under the locked vault. And one scene in the documentary shows an alarm that was triggered on the first day of shooting because the 550 tons of severely mutilated scaffolding that towered over the restoration site had shifted unsafe in the wind.

« We all had to leave the premises, » he said, including the scientists. « That set the tone for our shoot, which was highly unpredictable. It was a lot, we get what we get [in the film] when we are there. « 

Notre Dame is an architectural masterpiece, a testament to the collective expertise of centuries of artisans. « They were the original engineers before the term ‘engineering’ existed, » said Lubman. « You couldn’t go to school to learn engineering; it was passed on from father to son for many, many generations. It is very nice to believe that these buildings are the result of thousands of years of experience. I think so much of this knowledge is imprinted on the materials themselves. People today can look at the craftsmanship and tool brands and understand exactly how they did it. « 

One of the experts at Saving Notre Dame is the glass scientist Claudine Loisel, who was relieved to find that the cathedral’s famous stained glass windows were intact and not too badly damaged. There were micro-cracks in some panels due to the thermal shock of the fire, and most of the windows were coated with the toxic lead dust released when the lead roof burned. She found an effective decontamination plan with a tiny precision vacuum cleaner, followed by removing more residue with cotton balls soaked in distilled water. Using X-ray spectroscopic analysis, she was able to determine how many wipes it took to remove the lead without damaging the paint underneath.

For this segment, Lubman took his film crew to York, where conservationists have taken a new approach to preserving the stained glass windows of York Minster Cathedral. The cathedral caught fire in 1984 and shattered the south transept rose window glass, despite the lead holding it together so it could be removed and carefully put back together. The new approach involves installing clear glass outer frames before replacing the original stained glass windows. The gap between them improves ventilation and prevents condensation from building up on the original stained glass and protects it from harmful UV rays.

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