If time travel were possible, medieval carpenters would surely be amazed to see how the carpentry techniques they pioneered in building the Notre Dame Cathedral more than 800 years ago they are still used today to rebuild the roof of this world-famous monument, which was devastated by fire three years ago.
The same goes for the modern carpenters using medieval techniques. Working with hand axes to make hundreds of tons of oak beams for the new roof of Notre Dame was like turn back time. It gave them a new appreciation of the handwork of their predecessors, who were already pushing the envelope in terms of architecture in the 13th century.
“Sometimes it’s a little unbelievable,” said Peter Henrikson, one of the carpenters. He argues that there are moments when, striking the chisel with the sledgehammer, he thinks of his medieval peers cutting “pretty much the same piece 900 years ago.”
“It’s fascinating,” she added. “We’re probably thinking the same things in a way,” she said.
The employment of hand tools rebuilding the roof burned to ashes in 2019 is a deliberate and thoughtful choice, not least because power tools would certainly have done the job more quickly.
Gift
The aim is to pay homage to the extraordinary craftsmanship of the cathedral’s original builders and to ensure the survival of the ancient art of hand woodworking.
“We want to restore this cathedral as it was built in the Middle Ages,” explained Jean-Louis Georgelin, a retired French army general who oversaw the reconstruction.
“It’s a way of being faithful to the (work) of all the people who built all of France’s extraordinary monuments.”
Facing a tight deadline to reopen the cathedral in December 2024, carpenters and architects are also using computer design and other modern technologies to speed up rebuilding.
Computers were used to draw detailed plans for the carpenters, to ensure their hand chiselled beams they will fit perfectly.
“Traditional carpenters had a lot of that on their mind,” Henrikson noted. It’s “quite amazing to think about how they did it with what they had, the tools and technology of the day.”
This 61-year-old American is from Grand Marais, Minnesota. Most of the other craftsmen working on the wooden structure are French.
The progress of the works
The reconstruction of the roof reached a major milestone in May, when much of the new structure was assembled and erected wooden in a laboratory in the Loire Valley in western France.
The test served to reassure the architects that the frame was fit for purpose. The next time it is mounted it will be on top of the cathedral.
Unlike medieval times, it will be trucked to Paris and lowered into place using a mechanical crane. About 1,200 trees were cut down for the work.
“The goal we had was to restore the wooden structure that disappeared during the fire on April 15, 2019 to its original state,” explains architect Remi Fromont, who made detailed drawings of the original structure in 2012.
The reconstructed structure “is the same 13th-century wooden structure,” he said. “We have exactly the same material: oak. We have the same tools, with the same axes used, exactly the same tools. We have the same know-how. And it will soon be back to the same place.”
“It is,” he added, “a real resurrection.”
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Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.