Upgrade may be part of rebuild
Experts: High-tech tools to be used to restore cathedral
WASHINGTON — As the first images of charred wreckage inside Notre Dame Cathedral appeared online, engineers around the world said one observation was already clear: To return the ancient structure to its glorious past, builders will likely have to turn to cutting-edge technology that many associate with the future.
Even before engineers had been able to access the deepest corners of the structure, design experts, preservationists and engineers were contemplating which modern technologies might be brought to bear to restore one of Europe’s most iconic structures to its fabled past.
It’s a speculative exercise, they admit, but one that is to be expected with the future of a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site at stake.
The rebuilding effort will likely draw upon expertise gleaned from disasters like the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear disaster in Japan and the BrazilianNational Museum fire, where experimental robots and new digital tools have been used to go places people cannot safely venture and replicate detailed artifacts lost to fire.
Throughout the rebuilding effort, experts say, engineers and preservationists will be forced to wrestle with an ever-present question.
“Howdo they meld brand new 21st century technologies with ancient craftsmanship and building trades in ways that keep the cathedral preserved and alive?” said Katherine Malon-France, the interim chief preservation officer of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a privately funded nonprofit based inWashington. “This is going to be a very interesting intersection of technology and craft, and the world will be closelywatching howthey pull it off.”
Some of the technology that will be used to restore Notre Dame has already been on display. As a wall of orange flames roared across the cathedral’s roof Monday, and hundreds of firefighters mounted their counterattack, high-tech machines had already been brought to the fight.
Hovering in the air above the cathedral, a pair of Chinesemanufactured commercial drones equipped with HD cameras— theMavicPro andMatrice M210, madebyDJI— helped firefighters position their hoses to contain the blaze before it before it destroyed the cathedral’s two, iconic belfries, according to the French newspaper Le Parisien.
“It is thanks to these drones, to this new technique absolutely unavoidable today, that we could make tactical choices to stop this fire at a time when it was potentially occupying the two belfries,” Paris firefighters spokesman Gabriel Plus said.
On the ground, Colossus, a robotic fire extinguisher, blasted the navewithwater, lowering the temperature of the glass-filled room, the paper reported.
In the crucial months ahead,