In Cologne, work is underway to restore the four stained glass windows of Notre Dame Cathedral, damaged by fire. They are already almost completely cleaned of lead dust. In April 2023, they are planned to be installed again in Notre Dame de Paris. “We will definitely have time to finish the work by spring. The lead plaque has already been removed. Now the stained-glass windows will be washed – and the restoration will actually begin. Everything is going according to schedule,” said Peter Füssenich, chief architect-custodian of the Cologne Cathedral, head of the restoration workshops gothic temple.
In April 2019, during a fire in Notre Dame Cathedral, the vaulted roof almost completely burned down, and part of the 850-year-old temple collapsed. Windows and stained-glass windows had to be urgently removed, and the paintings were sent to the Louvre. A thick layer of lead dust settled on the surviving elements and details, since the roof was made of lead. Today the whole world is helping to restore this religious and cultural symbol of Paris.
Literally the day after the fire in Germany, a campaign to collect donations was launched. From the very beginning, it was planned that the money would not just be transferred to Paris, but spent on specific restoration projects. One of them is currently being implemented in Germany: in the workshop at the Cologne Cathedral, some of the stained-glass windows that survived the fire are being restored. Abstract mosaics were created by the famous French glassblower, artist and decorator Jacques Le Chevalier in 1965. He has worked on the windows of many cathedrals, churches and chapels in France, Belgium and Switzerland, and has designed stained glass windows in the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Liebfrauenkirche) in Trier, Germany.
A French woman restores the stained glass windows of Notre Dame in Cologne
On the day that the cathedral burned in Paris, French glass restorer Elodie Schneider was in the workshop at Cologne Cathedral for an internship. “Everyone around me sympathized with me. Even then it was decided that something would be done here to restore Notre Dame de Paris,” recalls the Frenchwoman. When it became clear last year that 90 of the nearly 3,000 square meters of damaged stained glass and windows in the Paris Cathedral would be restored in Cologne, Elodie Schneider was invited to take part in the project.
The fact that the most famous Parisian Catholic church is about to shine again in its former splendor, she and five other specialists from the team take literally. With cotton buds and soft brushes, restorers gradually remove gray-black lead dust from the surface. Since it is very harmful to health, the windows had to be placed in a decontamination chamber first. The remains, which are now removed by hand, are already safe.
The next important step is sealing the cracks in the glass and restoring the broken fragments. It takes only a few seconds for a specialist to fasten two pieces of glass the size of a finger or restore a profile. This uses a soldering iron and a mixture of tin and lead. Elodie Schneider admits that her work in the workshop of the Cologne Cathedral is not the easiest and looks like a puzzle. But she is proud: “I think it’s a wonderful symbol of friendship between France and Germany.”
And yet, it’s not the cracks in the stained-glass windows that worry restorers the most, but the tight schedule set by French President Emmanuel Macron. Notre Dame Cathedral is scheduled to open to visitors in the spring of 2024. This means that the elements restored in Cologne must be installed in their original places within six months at the latest. Meeting the deadline is not an easy task, because most of the glass is still in large wooden boxes, and their processing requires special care and time. At the same time, it is impossible to break the deadlines, because this large-scale construction and restoration process in Paris consists of many interacting stages, hundreds of specialists of various professions are involved in it. “It’s crazy logistics,” says Katrin Wittstadt, head of the glass restoration workshop in Cologne.
To fit the French schedule, the German team is ready to postpone all other cases for a few months – until the end of the project. The work in Germany is funded by funds raised during the North Rhine-Westphalia for Notre Dame campaign. The total amount was half a million euros.
Notre Dame de Paris – a symbol of European culture
In total, more than 900 million euros were donated from around the world in a few days. At the same time, critical voices began to be heard. Dissatisfied with the situation, people accused the big donors of extravagance and demanded that they make better use of these hundreds of millions of euros to deal with natural disasters and humanitarian disasters. “It’s nice that the billionaires were able to find a billion euros for Notre Dame, but no one cares about 140,000 homeless people,” the Yellow Vests protest movement said on Facebook at the time.
Supporters of the restoration of the cathedral answer that there are buildings that are more than just stones. We are talking about cultural values that have shaped national identity for centuries, and therefore deserve protection. Notre-Dame-de-Paris is located in the historical heart of Paris – on the Cite, one of the two islands of the Seine, on the site of the first Christian church in Paris – the Basilica of Saint Stephen, built in turn on the foundation of the Gallo-Roman temple of Jupiter, erected on the site of the ancient Celtic sanctuaries. The Gothic cathedral was built on the initiative of the Parisian bishop Maurice de Sully from 1163 to 1345. The temple has been visited and continues to be visited by millions of people from all over the world, regardless of their social status and religion. Notre Dame is considered one of the main symbols of European culture.
The mysterious coffin was found during restoration work
Notre Dame Cathedral is considered one of the most mysterious places in Europe. Built for 182 years, it was destroyed by fire in just 63 minutes. Why did the fire happen? Even after three years there is no exact answer. And this fire was not the last in a series of mystical events.
So, during the restoration work, workers discovered a well-preserved lead coffin. It was installed in the floor, a meter below the floor slab, between the masonry of the heating system. There were also other objects – for example, painted sculptures. Experts suspect that this find may date back to the 14th century. While the team only looked inside the coffin with an endoscopic camera, they found the upper part of the skeleton, a pillow of plant remains, textile fragments, organic material and several as yet unidentified items. The place of burial suggests that the deceased belonged to the Parisian elite. However, at the moment, the mystery of the lead sarcophagus from Notre Dame Cathedral has not been disclosed. Restoration and restoration work continues.