Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

A bit more on the time lapse cameras ...

Footage from the camera, which was placed on the northern belltower and is now in the hands of investigators, shows the first smoke coming out of the spire's base, Marc Eskenazi, a representative for Europe Echafaudage told Reuters.

"Shots were taken every 10 minutes starting from Monday at 2 p.m.," Eskenazi said. "Smoke can be seen on these images. It starts on the south side" he said.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/04/18/time-lapse-shots-of-notre-dame-spire-may-yield-clues-on-blaze/23713884/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmllLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKKy7Sxy4ob8bZShQ2xZuArJd_Tr_BRKUNkDpFeaZ_KmM_dZd9OyfPBKy6cJvCwa24mDvG2jq5GYAnXMaMeM3vsMysSAPjUqrypc9EXbT8HHXHSjw1WMECOtdjdb5W4z0JomBOJ40q0SX0iB6w0Pnz5RjhQG_VkX8cm2Jj22VDG7

And for a little bit of light comedy...

https://www.thedcpi.com/seven-alternative-spires-for-notre-dame-cathedral/

What they were thinking with the 'fire' one is beyond me tbh ...

CelticRambler wrote: »

I think it's the confusion of two different storylines - as far as the scaffolding/restoration crew were concerned, there was "no electricity" up there, i.e. they had cut the power to all of their equipment/installations, which obviously they would have been very keen to emphasise right from the beginning, to avoid being blamed for something that wasn't their fault.

There's no "conspiracy theory" around whether or not there were bells present in the spire - there were; what's changed is that investigative reporting by Le Canard Enchainé suggests that the fire may instead have been a problem waiting to happen, due to that age-old French tradition of flouting the rules.

It reinforces my third suspicion, as stated earlier, that some work done in the area of the spire (installation of scaffolding, or perhaps the removal of those statues?) inadvertently contributed one last condition to a pre-existing tinder-box.

No - theres no confusion as far as I can see. There are a number of reports that there was a permanent electricity supply to the spire which powered electrified bells. This addition was made in 2007/2012 and used when the main bells of the cathedral were removed to be recast and appeared to have continued in use during the mass on the day of the fire.

The separate temporary electrical supply for the building work / restoration has been fairly well detailed.

As stated all there are at present are 'suspicions'. And none of that makes for anyone detailing a conspiracy theory imo...

The first elements of the investigation would point to a dangerous installation of electrified bells. The boss of the company (Freres Bras) who mounted the scaffolding around the spire of Notre Dame, assured (the two Newspapers)  that six bells connected by electric cables running in the frames were in the attic from the cathedral.

Other accounts in the French media also appear to validate the account of these electrified bells.

Some videos of the chantier or 'building site's before the fire - showing the scaffolding and the elevators, including the distance of the lift from the building itself

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6m9cx5


https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x75ddnr

And this of a free climber acessing the roof and spire before the fire. Includes a brief shot of the bells in the spire

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7643zd

[Deleted User] wrote: »

That free climbing craic gives me the he-be gee-be's, especially those Russian guys.

I have an old book from the turn of the last century - when this kinda thing first took off and details photographs of students of either Oxford or Cambridge (cant quite remember tbh) abseiling up and down the college buildings. Would have been handy doing a bunk from college I'd imagine ...

Wayne Gorsky wrote: »

a freeclimber? wtf, so much for site security...

Because free climbers never get past security in any other buildings in the world :rolleyes:

The Bells of Note Dame - video of bell ringing and the towers just prior to the fire.

Amazing that bells which have been rung on the site for near a 1000 years are now silent ...

Turns out the threat to Notre Dame is not over yet. The fire is out and the site is probably stabilised, but now decisions must be made as to the rebuilding of the parts that were damaged. And that's where things are starting to go wrong.

It is now proposed, for various reasons, some good, some not so good, to "break with the past" and rebuild the roof and spire is a more modern, or perhaps post-modern style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lB5QbMxvac

Suffice it to say that the rebuilt Notre Dame may end up bearing little resemblance to anything its designers in history ever intended. While a minor redesign to help with fireproofing might be a good idea, I think it ought to be done in a style sympathetic to its history.

The French and Europeans generally would have a different attitude to conservation/recreation than we would here and in Britain.

Personally I couldn't think of anything worse than trying to fake it. Re-interpret it will be the way they will go, I'd imagine. They are as afraid of opinion.

SeanW wrote: »

It wasn't supposed to be modern after the 13th century. It was always supposed to be middle ages Gothic - modern at the time of construction but period specific afterwards. 200 years ago they had to rebuild the spire, and it seems that the then new spire was sympathetic if not a little out of scale with the then old one.

My main issue with this would be the mixing of styles. If you want to build a modern building - fine, build a modern building. No problem there. But Notre Dame is not a modern building and I think it would be a disservice to mix a glass fully modern roof and steel-glass spire onto a Gothic masterpiece.

As for "trying to fake it" that's what they did 200 years ago and it wasn't all that bad. Mixing styles is what the Germans did with the Reichstag and it is fugly.

Personally I think the job of architecture is not to pretend or fake the old. It is to make you think about the structure and to be able to read it as well.
I like the old juxtaposed with the new in challenging ways. It may not be to my taste but if it is considered it could never be ugly to my eye anyhow.
This juxtaposition is stunning in photo and real life.

Anteayer wrote: »

I don't agree that there's much difference in attitudes. The French are INCREDIBLY conservative about restoration of old buildings, even small ones that are privately owned. There's extremely serious regulation by 'Les architectes des bâtiments de France' (ABF) to a level that's sometimes far more intrusive than the UK's National Trust.

The majority of restorations in France and in Europe are usually painstakingly accurate to the original building.

There'll be a lot of decisions to be made though. For example restoring the roof with original materials is impossible as it would require cutting down an ancient oak forest and these days those are rare and extremely protected. The living forests would be considered far more important than Notre Dame. So you're probably looking at a different roof structure, possibly involving metal or wood clad metal.

I think whatever they do it will probably be debated for quite some time. I'm not really keen on the idea or Macron rushing it to be achieved in 5 years. I don't think that's realistic. It's probably going to take a decade.

Yes, I agree - restoration is restoration - restoring what is there already. But if it is to be replaced I don't think they will fake it.
And I also don't think they should either.

Anteayer wrote: »

I wonder if the electrical installation in the roof could have been accidentally disturbed by the construction work, rather than the restoration team actually bringing in new wiring. It looks to me like they were very aware of risks and were managing what they were doing very actively.

You'd also wonder about the how that system was designed. It should have been possible to use actuators that stuck the bells pneumatically, so any electrical systems could have been keep at ground level, visible and easily maintained. You'd only have tubes carrying compressed air.

One of the syndicated news services had a news report concerning a group of tourists who had visited the cathedral that afternoon. They and their group leader reported that the lights within the cathedral had been flickering on / off at brief intervals.

It was also reported that the electronic bells of the spire had been used during the mass being said at the time of the first fire alarm.

So some dodgy electrics perhaps or ?

Anteayer wrote: »

I wonder if the electrical installation in the roof could have been accidentally disturbed by the construction work, rather than the restoration team actually bringing in new wiring.

My hypothesis from a few weeks back!

Anteayer wrote: »

I'm not even sure that it would be a particularly good idea to stick with 13th century flammable materials given what's just happened.

If, by "flammable", you mean "wood" there's a huge, flourishing industry in France that would be upset. It's quite fashionable these days for shopping centres, regional airports, community centres and other such public venues to have their major structural elements made out of locally sourced timber.

Anteayer wrote: »

I don't agree that there's much difference in attitudes. The French are INCREDIBLY conservative about restoration of old buildings, even small ones that are privately owned. There's extremely serious regulation by 'Les architectes des bâtiments de France' (ABF) to a level that's sometimes far more intrusive than the UK's National Trust.

Hmmm. Yeah, kinda, ish ... ça dépend ! My local village had a 13th Century retaining wall fall down while building work was being carried out on the abbey above. There's nothing conservative about the concrete and steel they've used to rebuild it (hidden behind a skin of stone salvaged from the collapse). It's also very common for historic buildings to be allowed fall into such disrepair that the only reasonable way of dealing with them is with a bulldozer.

Then you have the "neither one thing nor the other" project, like what was our parish church that was "sympathetically" renovated with a new (i.e. modern) oak-and-stone floor laid over the old mediaeval flagstones ... but they didn't use that opportunity to install underfloor heating, so the church is still (not) heated with fugly, 1960s, carbon-monoxide spewing, gas heaters half way up the walls.

There are, indeed, strict rules governing repairs, maintenance and restoration of historic buildings; and then there's reality of hit-and-miss application of those rules, and a long-practised tradition of getting away with non-compliance. I'm fairly sure that something along those lines was at the root of the ND fire.

Anteayer wrote: »

There's just no way they can possibly get that quantitiy of large oak without causing massive environmental damage to some forest. If they used modern treated woods, they're all fast growing and sustainable forestry but they won't look similar.

There are dozens (if not hundreds) of communes offering the use of some of their old oaks, so spreading the harvest across thousands of hectares wouldn't make any great difference to the environment. More is being done in the name of "sustainable" energy and wood chip/pellet boilers ...

But the real challenge in that regard is Macron's 5-year timescale - I doubt there's enough kiln capacity in the whole country to dry the amount of timber needed, and there's no way any newly donated oak would be dry enough to use in ten years if left to dry naturally.

All things considered, I think the most iconic thing about ND that's been lost is the silhouette (ignoring the fact that just about every iconic building these days is clad in scaffold whenever I want to take a picture of it :mad: ) and that could be quickly and easily re-created using a metal framework.

There would be no structural reason to re-create "the forest" with metal, but it wouldn't do any harm to replicate with a light-weight material if it served to demonstrate what was lost. But then few ordinary citizens or tourists ever got to see the original, so unless they're going to introduce tours of the attic as a new attraction, there's probably no point.

Anteayer wrote: »

I'm not sure that even one oak should be cut down to do this. They're far more valuable than a church.
We have so few examples of centuries old oak trees precisely because of the legacy of using them as a building material.

Well, now you're getting into the same realm as the vegan animal lovers' argument that we should let cows and pigs live long and happy lives - lives they wouldn't have if they weren't reared to be eaten!

Centuries-old oak is rare in Ireland, but very common in France. I've got ten of them along my property boundary ... nine come next month, because I'm felling one to use as firewood (don't worry, it's already dead) and I've got a dozen trunks out the front, knocked by my rich landowner neighbour, that I'm hoping to get sliced into usable planks at some stage to use for flooring and furniture.

It's a different "circle of life" to the usual stereotype, but the logic is still the same: people (like me) plant trees to be used as a crop so that people (like me) can use them in the future for a "higher purpose". I've recently been using boards salvaged from the attic that are older than the ND spire to make stuff. If they'd stayed attached to a 16th or 17th Century tree, I reckon they'd be well rotted by now; instead they continue to add value to my life and that of my family and friends.

Well like I said, before we get anywhere close to the environmental impact, the powers that be will have to face the practicalities of investing so much time and so much of those philanthropic funds into a part of the building that was rarely seen before, and in all likelihood will remain invisible to most of the world afterwards. And of course we're still going through the phase "is the rest of it going to fall down or not?" One violent storm - the like of which is quite common in Paris - could easily make a discussion about roof timbers quite irrelevant.

gozunda wrote: »

Any idea how the securing of the building against weather and taking down the damaged scaffolding is progressing?

Nope. Been too busy with manic gardening to keep completely up-to-date! But I did see a photo over the weekend that showed how the scaffolding had partially collapsed inwards, which wasn't obvious on the early photos. No doubt that'll make it trickier to dismantle, but even so, I think it'll be one of the less complicated challenges of the project.

What seems to be a follow up from that, called The Next Chapter, is on BBC 2 at 8 pm 05 April, with a couple of repeats listed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016v1h