Notre Dame’s fire-ravaged roof rebuilt using medieval techniques...

[DGUtley]

Notre Dame’s fire-ravaged roof rebuilt using medieval techniques...

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If time travel was possible, medieval carpenters would surely be amazed to see how woodworking techniques they pioneered in building Notre Dame Cathedral more than 800 years ago are being used again today to rebuild the world-famous monument’s fire-ravaged roof.

Certainly the reverse is true for the modern-day carpenters using medieval-era skills. Working with hand axes to fashion hundreds of tons of oak beams for the framework of Notre Dame’s new roof has, for them, been like rewinding time. It’s given them a new appreciation of their predecessors’ handiwork that pushed the architectural envelope back in the 13th century.

“It’s a little mind-bending sometimes,” says Peter Henrikson, one of the carpenters. He says there are times when he’s whacking mallet on chisel that he finds himself thinking about medieval counterparts who were cutting “basically the same joint 900 years ago.” “It’s fascinating,” he says. “We probably are in some ways thinking the same things.”


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Prior thread: ‘They said it was impossible’: how medieval carpenters are rebuilding Notre Dame (thepoliticalforums.com)
Prior thread: tPF Notre-Dame came far closer to collapsing than people knew. This is how it was saved. (thepoliticalforums.com)

[Peter1469]

Hopefully they will use these relearned skills in future building contracts- you know, build stuff to last while looking good?

[XavierOnassis]

I imagine that cutting logs into beams with power tools would be more efficient, but the French see Notre Dame as a national historic legacy and therefore should be restored in the same way that it was built. It would be like Jeanne d'Arc dressed in polyester, and they want none of that.