On the Notre-Dame construction site, the dazzling return of light and color

“It’s really wonderful these colors which had completely disappeared. I discovered them live,” the vice-rector of Notre-Dame de Paris, Guillaume Normand, confessed to AFP as he entered one of the cathedral’s 24 fully restored chapels. “It’s incredibly daring! », adds this priest, noting “the yellow, the pink of the holly leaves on a duck blue background” of the frescoes with stylized motifs that the architect Viollet-le-Duc designed in the 19th century to revamp this masterpiece of Gothic art, devastated by fire on April 15, 2019.

Dressed, like those accompanying him, in overalls, a helmet and safety boots, Guillaume Normand walks the accessible part of the construction site on the ground floor of the cathedral. And must take a preventive shower before going out to get rid of any residual lead dust dispersed in the atmosphere during the fire. In the meantime, having barely crossed the central portal known as “the last judgment”, through which future visitors will enter Notre-Dame, he utters only one word: “Striking”. Under the cover of a ray of sunlight, the cathedral, clogged by centuries of life before the fire, appears bursting with light. All the stained glass windows, including the three large medieval roses, have been cleaned and diffuse their subdued colors.

Against all expectations, they were not damaged by the fire, like a large golden cross located at the back of the cathedral and a statue of the Virgin and Child, “found intact at the amid the smoking and miraculous rubble,” says the priest. “The flower pot in front of the statue was pulverized...The evening of the fire, we were shuddering wondering if the north tower was going to fall or not, taking the entire building with it. “He’s still standing, it’s a big relief,” he adds.

A number of shrill noises come from the bustling construction site. In areas demarcated by metal barriers, workers are restoring the black and white checkerboard floors and installing future technical and electrical equipment. Gigantic scaffolding still hides part of the restored treasures of the building, protected by tarpaulins, including the sculpted and painted wood of the choir enclosure. When visitors re-enter the cathedral, which is due to reopen on December 8, “the perception of its dimension will be without equal,” believes its rector, Mgr Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas. “It is a feeling of humility (which) inhabits me in front of those who created it, transmitted it, saved it and those who restore it,” he confides.

The rector expects “13 to 14 million future visitors per year and 40,000 to 45,000 per day, the cathedral being able to hold only 3,000 people at the same time”. Equipped with new signage in the form of cartels, the tour route will begin in the North (Sacré-Coeur side) and continue to the South (Seine side), telling the biblical story leading to Christ, then that of the saints who marked Paris. Visitors will also discover brand new liturgical furniture, in bronze, sober and massive, currently being produced in Drôme (south of France).

Upon entering, they will immediately see a polished bronze baptistery, with a golden lid imitating the reflection of water, to celebrate baptisms. They will be able to sit on 1,500 to 2,000 chairs with an openwork design, facing the brand new central, refined altar, to celebrate mass. A tabernacle (small piece of furniture which contains the “consecrated bread”) will be installed on another altar designed by Viollet-le-Duc at the back of the cathedral, preceding a contemporary “reliquary wall” which will house, according to the diocese, “the crown of thorns of Christ brought back by Saint-Louis.