THAT’S DAME FINE CARPENTRY WORK
800-year-old techniques used to rebuild Paris landmark’s roof
IF time travel was possible, medieval carpenters would be amazed to see how woodworking techniques they pioneered in building Notre Dame Cathedral more than 800 years ago are being used again today.
After a devastating fire in 2019, work is currently underway to rebuild the world-famous monument’s roof.
Modern-day carpenters have been using medieval-era skills. They have been working with hand axes to fashion hundreds of tonnes of oak beams for the framework of Notre Dame’s new roof which has, for them, been like rewinding time.
It’s given them a new appreciation of their predecessors’ handiwork that pushed the architectural envelope back in the 13th century.
Peter Henrikson, one of the carpenters working on the fireravaged roof, said: “It’s a little mind-bending sometimes.”
He claimed there are times when he’s whacking mallet on chisel that he finds himself thinking about medieval counterparts who were cutting “basically the same joint
900 years ago”.
He continued: “It’s fascinating. We probably are in some ways thinking the same things.” The use of hand tools to rebuild the roof that flames turned into ashes four years ago is a deliberate, considered choice, especially since power tools would undoubtedly have done the work more quickly.
The aim is to pay tribute to the astounding craftsmanship of the cathedral’s original builders and to ensure the centuries-old art of hand-fashioning wood lives on.
Jean-louis Georgelin, the retired French army general who is overseeing the reconstruction, said: “We want to restore this cathedral as it was built in the Middle Ages.
“It is a way to be faithful to the [handiwork] of all the people who built all the extraordinary monuments in France.”
Facing a tight deadline to reopen the cathedral by December 2024, carpenters and architects are also using computer design and other modern technologies to speed the reconstruction.
Computers were used in the drawing of detailed plans for carpenters, to help ensure that their hand-chiseled beams fit together perfectly.
Henrikson, 61, added: “Traditional carpenters had a lot of that in their head.”
He believes it was “pretty amazing to think about how they did this with what they had, the tools and technology that they had at the time”.
The roof reconstruction hit an important milestone in May, when large parts of the new timber frame were assembled and erected at a workshop in the Loire Valley, in western France.
The dry run assured architects that the frame is fit for purpose. The next time it is put together will be atop the cathedral. It will be trucked into Paris and lifted by mechanical crane into position. Some 1,200 trees have been felled for the work.
Architect Remi Fromont described the restoration as a “real resurrection”.
He said: “We have the same material – oak. We have the same tools. We have the same know-how. And soon, it will return to its same place.”