The restoration of Notre Dame cathedral, which opened in December 2024 after the fire in 2019, involved 2000 craftspeople, 250 companies and around US$900m.
Rebuilding the destroyed roof (which was nicknamed, The Forest) and was made of oak, involved a national call for oak trees. Many needed to be perfectly straight, 20m long and 50cm in diameter. A thousand trees were ultimately selected and harvested.
Then they needed 1300 cubic metres of limestone; and using ancient crafts, the structure was rebuilt (some restoration continues even after the cathedral was opened). As large projects go, it was a great success.
A reporter from the New York Times wrote:
“Each day we have 20 difficulties,” Philippe Jost, who headed the restoration task force, told me. “But it’s different when you work on a building that has a soul. Beauty makes everything easier.”
I can’t recall ever visiting a building site that seemed calmer, despite the pressure to finish on time, or one filled with quite the same quiet air of joy and certitude. When I quizzed one worker about what the job meant to her, she struggled to find words, then started to weep.
(quoted by Diana Butler Bass in her substack.)
Despite being a secular country, France rightly took pride in the restoration of this iconic building, the spritual heart of Paris. It may have contributed to winds of fresh interest blowing through Catholicism. Last Easter day (2025) 10,000 adult Catholics were baptised in France, twice the number of 2023 and the highest number since records began to be taken 20 years ago. Seven thousand teenagers were baptized, ten times the number in 2019.1.
‘Beauty makes everything easier’: fascinating.