Notre Dame’s new spire unveiled after 2019 fire, complete with golden rooster
Scaffolding surrounding the peak of Notre Dame’s new spire came down this week, revealing the restored structure to the public in a landmark moment for the medieval Parisian cathedral, which was ravaged by a fire in April 2019. The soaring spire, crowned with a cross and golden rooster, peeks out of a dense grid of support beams.
Notre Dame is expected to reopen on Dec. 8 for the first time since the blaze, which also damaged its roof and some of its vaults. It is not clear what sparked the fire, though an initial 2019 investigation suggested it may have been caused by an electrical malfunction during a renovation.
French President Emmanuel Macron celebrated the development, writing on social media, “She appears once again in the sky! French pride.”
Jennifer Feltman, a medieval art historian at the University of Alabama who is part of an official team studying Notre Dame as it’s restored, said in a phone interview that the unveiling was “just remarkable.” “For them to be at this point has required a great deal of dedication,” she said.
The inferno left a cathedral-shaped-hole in the Paris skyline and a void in the history and hearts of the city. In the spire’s rebirth, many have found joy in something lost being returned — but not everyone. The unveiling also marks the epilogue of a fierce debate over how to restore the famous structure. For some, re-creating the 19th-century spire was essential; while for others, mimicking history risked writing ourselves — and our 21st-century design sensibilities — out of it.
The new construction is largely a re-creation. On its website, Friends of Notre Dame, a nonprofit raising money to rebuild the cathedral, describes the spire as “identical in appearance, materials (oak framework covered with lead), and construction methods used” to the previous one. The golden rooster is an exception, having been reimagined in the style of a phoenix with flaming wings by the chief architect of the reconstruction, Philippe Villeneuve. Another rooster stood atop the spire previously; the bird is considered an emblem of France.
Notre Dame’s spire has seen several chapters in its roughly 800-year history. The original spire, built around 1250, was used as a bell tower in the 1600s and removed in the late 1700s because it risked collapsing from decay. For decades, the cathedral remained spireless. Then, in the mid-19th century, architect Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc designed a new spire, which stood until the fire.