Five years after fire, a shining Notre Dame is ready to reopen its doors

Restoring the Notre Dame cathedral has been profound for people like archaeologist Dorothée Chaoui-Derieux.

Since the 2019 fire that saw Notre Dame’s famous spire burn to ash, Ms. Chaoui-Derieux and her team of 20 have unearthed an abundance of medieval treasures. They include forgotten tombs, headless sculptures, and the fragmented remains of a vibrantly colored 13th-century rood screen – the partition that separates the choir from the nave – buried beneath the cathedral floor.

“We’ve literally had our hands in 2,000 years of history, excavating and digging up the past,” says Ms. Chaoui-Derieux, chief curator of heritage at the Regional Archaeological Service of cultural affairs for the Paris region. “Our goal is to make sure this medieval cathedral, and all its history, comes back to life.”

As Paris’ beloved cathedral gets its last-minute touches before it reopens to the public Dec. 8, people like Ms. Chaoui-Derieux who have worked tirelessly on Notre Dame’s restoration say the public is in for more than a few surprises.

“The cathedral was very dark; it had accumulated centuries’ worth of dust,” says Ms. Chaoui-Derieux. “Now, people will find bright-colored stone and clean stained-glass windows. We’re going to rediscover a cathedral bursting with light.”

In the aftermath of the fire, when French President Emmanuel Macron promised to restore Notre Dame in five years, many said it couldn’t be done. But hundreds of millions of euros in donations poured in from around the world, and over 1,000 restorers, artisans, and craftspeople have risen to the challenge of Mr. Macron’s steep timeline.

Now, they say, the public can expect a revitalized cathedral that incorporates old and new, respecting tradition while also breathing new life into the iconic cathedral.

“Everyone involved – from City Hall and the Catholic diocese to artisans and academics – has put everything they have into this project,” says Sylvie Sagnes, an anthropologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and member of a multidisciplinary research team on the Notre Dame restoration. “We all wanted to respect this national monument that generates so much emotion for people.”

Notre Dame’s universal appeal

The world watched in disbelief as the Notre Dame cathedral caught fire on April 15, 2019. By the following day, the cathedral’s wooden spire had collapsed, its upper walls were damaged, and most of its wooden roof was destroyed. The fire caused an outpouring of generosity, with individuals and businesses donating upward of $1 billion toward restoration efforts within two years.

Notre Dame “is both a religious and a cultural monument, and has universal value to people,” says Nathalie Heinich, a French sociologist and author. “To see a building that had remained identical since its construction be destroyed, it created a rare emotional reaction. There was a sense that both authenticity and antiquity – two fundamental heritage values – had been affected.”

Though the fire was traumatic, it provided an opportunity to look at Notre Dame through a new lens. Early on, some called to restore the cathedral using contemporary design. But those ideas were eventually scrapped as heritage experts pushed for a restoration that respected the vision of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, one of the architects who oversaw a major restoration of the cathedral in the mid-19th century.

In August, the National Commission on Heritage and Architecture unanimously opposed President Macron’s plans to replace stained glass windows in six chapels in the cathedral’s nave with more modern versions.

And despite an international competition to reimagine the rebuild of the cathedral’s famous spire, Mr. Macron ultimately opted to restore it to Viollet-le-Duc’s conception. Forty carpenters from French building company Le Bras Frères meticulously studied the 19th-century sketches to re-create the medieval wooden spire.

“We used the same methods as in that era, except that this time we used electric machines to cut the pieces of wood,” says carpenter Patrick Jouenne, who quit his job to become the lead carpenter on the spire rebuild. “It was a challenge but also an honor to work for Notre Dame. You realize, wow, you can’t dream of anything better.”

Decorating the cathedral

As the restoration moved forward, there was one thing that was not up for debate: the need for a fire alarm system. At the time of the fire in 2019, the centuries-old Notre Dame did not have any type of detection apparatus in place.

“We had to envision all the possible scenarios and necessary measures, keeping in mind the sheer size of Notre Dame, and the interaction between fire and ventilation,” says Benjamin Truchot, project manager of the fire unit at the French National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks, which relied on digital and scale physical models to create an innovative fire detection system. “That was the big challenge: to offer a modern security system within such an ancient structure.”

While architects were keen to respect traditional methods structurally, there has been more leeway when it comes to garb and artifacts within the church.

Fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, who has dressed Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Pope John Paul II, says he was given free rein to design the liturgical garments for Notre Dame. The robes he came up with, made of off-white Scottish wool gabardine, feature sprays of red, blue, and yellow fragments surrounding a gold cross.

“The color represents all of us, humanity, the young and old coming together,” said Mr. Castelbajac, from his Paris studio. “We need a universal language.”

Last month, the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee gave Notre Dame the official Olympic bell, which will join two smaller bells – named Chiara and Carlos – to be rung during Mass.

And on Dec. 11, Notre Dame’s traditional choir will step aside for a special concert by an amateur choir made up of nearly 100 craftspeople and artisans who took part in the restoration.

But part of Notre Dame is still indelibly rooted in tradition. Last week, as a statue of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus that was saved during the fire made its way back to the cathedral in a public procession, there was a sense of Notre Dame’s resilience, its strength to pull itself up out of the ashes.

“Notre Dame has continued to provide us with hope and renaissance,” says Parisian Marie-Aline Girod, who took part in the procession. “It’s the heart of Paris.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated Dec. 6, the same day as publication, to correct the spelling of Dorothée Chaoui-Derieux’s name.