Notre Dame Cathedral Rebuilding – NBC Boston

In recent years, tireless work has been done to restore the historic Notre Dame Cathedral, after part of the Parisian monument burned down five years ago.

The tragedy is etched in the memory of the French and the rest of the world: on April 15, 2019, a fire destroyed the monument, toppling its 93-meter-high spire and collapsing its 800-year-old roof.

French President Emmanuel Macron promised it would be rebuilt within five years.

When the decision was made to restore the cathedral using centuries-old techniques, only a handful of people had the knowledge, including two carpenters from New England: Will Gusakov from Vermont and Hank Silver from Massachusetts.

The 13-ton bell of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris rang out on Wednesday, a year after the monument was destroyed by fire.

“It was a lot of work, thousands of pieces of oak that we shaped by hand using hand tools,” Gusakov said.

“We’ve had to recreate all of these inconsistencies and distortions that have happened over the centuries,” Silver said.

Both men worked with the group Carpenters Without Borders, using the same techniques used when the cathedral was first built to faithfully restore its appearance.

“We made a replica of this medieval frame that was quite well documented and very irregular. It was built over several decades by several teams of carpenters in the 13th century,” Gusakov explained.

“In the U.S., we have a building tradition that is much newer, but it is derived from these European methods. It is particularly meaningful to be able to work on this building, which is the birth of this technique,” ​​Silver said.

Scaffolding that covered the top of Notre Dame Cathedral after a devastating fire in April 2019 was removed Tuesday, revealing the new spire.

“We can go into a forest with an axe and some tools and cut down trees, chop them into beams and put them together into a structure. And it’s pretty amazing and encouraging to know that we can do that,” Gusakov said.

In today’s world of 3D printing and artificial intelligence, Gusakov sees their work as a connection to the past.

“I hope that everyone realizes and sees that this is evidence on a large scale, on a monumental scale, that these traditional, very ecological, very human-driven, almost non-industrial technologies are still very much alive and possible,” he said.

And furthermore: of great historical importance.

“I certainly thought about it, about the surreal fact that what we did, the cuts I made, would hopefully be with this monumental and iconic building for centuries to come,” he added.

Gusakov says that right at the top of that spire, in the golden rooster on the weather vane, there is a tube with a scroll inside. On that scroll are the names of everyone who worked to restore this cathedral to its former glory. The grand reopening is scheduled for December.