Inspiring Pictures: Gleaming Notre Dame to Reopen for Christmas Over Five Years After Devastating Fire

Oliver JJ Lane

29 Nov 2024363

3:39

French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the “sublime” rebuild of the magnificent 12th-century gothic Notre Dame de Paris cathedral as he toured it before reopening on Friday.

Notre Dame de Paris will reopen on December 7th, in time for Christmas, some five years and eight months after it was tragically gutted by fire, burning out the roof and bringing down its magnificent timber and lead spire. French President Emmanuel Macron, who has somewhat tied himself politically to the rebuild — having promised to have it done in five years shortly after the blaze — made a final site visit to the church on Friday and met with some of the workers who had repaired the building.

A combo of images showing the altar inside Notre Dame cathedral in Paris after the fire on April 16, 2019, top, and showing after the renovation and taken on Friday Nov. 29, 2024. (Christophe Petit Tesson and Stephane de Sakutin, Pool via AP)

There had been some 2,000 people who had worked on the project and 1,300 of them, which French newspaper Le Figaro states included stone masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, gilders, roofers, sculptors, decorative artists, and architects were in the cathedral today. President Macron congratulated them on rising to the “insane challenge” on the “construction project of the century”.

He told the artisans: “The fire at Notre-Dame was a national wound and you were its remedy through will, through work, through commitment (…) You have achieved what was thought impossible”.

As Macron toured the cathedral he called the work, which has transformed the building from a blackened shell of five years ago and even from the time-worn 800-year-old gothic cathedral before that, into a gleaming church. He called the work “sublime” and said he found the “blond stone” post-cleaning more hospitable.

French President Emmanuel Macron, second left, and his wife Brigitte Macron, left, visit the restored Notre-Dame Cathedral, Friday, Nov.29, 2024 in Paris. (Christophe Petit Tesson, Pool via AP)

Workers stand next to an excavator robot during preliminary work in the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral three months after a major fire Wednesday, July 17, 2019 in Paris. A French architect says that Notre Dame Cathedral still isn’t safe enough for restoration work to begin, more than three months after a devastating fire nearly destroyed the monument. (Stephane de Sakutin/Pool via AP)

One of the stops on the tour of the cathedral was the spire, near which the April 2019 fire started while it was shrouded with scaffolding for restoration work. The spire had burnt fast and collapsed onto the roof below, its weight smashing through the vaulting above the nave and the transept.

The rebuild of the spire had been the subject of some controversy in the first months after the fire as an architectural competition was suggested to decide a new design, which suggestions even that a confection in glass and steel might be symbolic of modern Paris. Calmer heads eventually won out though, and Notre Dame’s third spire was built as a replica of its second, designed in the 1850s.

The cathedral has not escaped modernist touches, however. French artist and designer Guillaume Bardet was selected for furniture including the baptistry font, which is distinctly minimalist.

More fundamental questions remain over if and when such fires will happen again and what, if anything, has been learnt from the very near total loss of Notre Dame de Paris. As reported last year French historian Didier Rykner sounded the alarm over the continued danger to world-class heritage. As stated:

Leveling his criticism at the French government this week, he warns governments are more dedicated to imposing new ecological standards on ancient structures than protecting them from being consumed by fire during renovation work… Rykner said the devastating Notre Dame fire could have been avoided, and the government had already been warned about insufficient fire protection at the site shortly before the blaze. These warnings, he claims, were ignored.

Rykner said of the lack of preparedness that even now nobody knows how or where the fire started because observation of the great cathedral during a time of heightened danger — while reconstruction work was underway — was so lacking. He told the paper: “we do not know where the fire started, because there are not enough personnel to monitor the cathedral. I actually think that we have not given ourselves the means to avoid it”.

This photograph shows the baptistery of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, designed by French artist and designer Guillaume Bardet, in Paris on November 29, 2024. The Notre-Dame Cathedral is set to re-open early December 2024, with a planned weekend of ceremonies on December 7 and 8, 2024, five years after the 2019 fire which ravaged the world heritage landmark and toppled its spire. (Photo by Christophe PETIT TESSON / POOL / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE – MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION – TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION (Photo by CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

A hole is seen in the dome inside Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, Tuesday, April 16, 2019. Firefighters declared success Tuesday in a more than 12-hour battle to extinguish an inferno engulfing Paris’ iconic Notre Dame cathedral that claimed its spire and roof, but spared its bell towers and the purported Crown of Christ. (Christophe Petit Tesson, Pool via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron (C-R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (C-L), accompanied by President of the “Rebatir Notre-Dame de Paris” public establishment Philippe Jost (R) visit Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in Paris, on November 29, 2024. The Notre-Dame Cathedral is set to re-open early December 2024, with a planned weekend of ceremonies on December 7 and 8, 2024, five years after the 2019 fire which ravaged the world heritage landmark and toppled its spire. (Photo by Christophe PETIT TESSON / POOL / AFP) (Photo by CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)