Analysis
As Paris watched flames consume its beloved Notre-Dame Cathedral five years ago, no one could have imagined just how toxic the smoke spewing from the disaster could be. The rising plume contained several billion particles of lead from the collapsing roof and spire. Now that the cathedral has been identically rebuilt, a group of associations is trying to break the silence on the danger posed by this metal.
Issued on: 05/12/2024 -
By: Cyrielle CABOT
Notre-Dame Cathedral a few days before its reopening, November 27, 2024. © AFP
Notre-Dame de Paris is preparing to open its doors to the public on December 8 after five years of rebuilding. From its iconic spire to its impressive roof, the cathedral is once again visible on the Paris skyline. But behind the scenes of this grand reopening lies a darker truth.
“It was the perfect opportunity to raise awareness of the dangers of lead,” said Mathé Toullier, who spearheads Notre-Dame Lead (collectif "plomb Notre-Dame" in French), a group of associations. “But we missed our chance.” Founded just after the fire that ravaged the cathedral in 2019, the group was created to sound the alarm on the dangers associated with the metal.
Touiller is also president of an organisation that supports victims of lead poisoning and their families. When she saw the huge yellow cloud rising from Notre-Dame five years ago, she quickly became concerned. “I immediately knew what was happening. Lead dust was spreading all across the capital,” she recalled.
As the flames engulfed the cathedral, a whopping 400 tonnes of lead from the roof and spire went up in smoke, according to French authorities. The cloud then continued its journey well beyond the city of light and travelled 16 kilometres east of Paris, according to the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
Dangers of lead
It has been widely documented that lead can be toxic, even in small doses. “However much a person is exposed, lead poisoning can cause neurological, renal or cardiovascular problems – especially in children but also in adults. It can also impact fertility, increase the risk of cancer or cause foetal abnormalities in pregnant women,” explained Annie Thébaud-Mony, a public health researcher at France's national institute of health and medical research (INSERM) and president of the Henri Pézérat association.
"There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects," the World Health Organization reports in its lead poisoning fact-sheet. And according to a study published in 2023 by the Lancet Planetary Health journal, 5.5 million people worldwide died from lead-related cardiovascular illnesses in 2019.
Read moreNotre-Dame set for further restorations, thanks to generous donations
The day after Notre-Dame caught fire, Toullier and Thébaud-Mony launched their collective, immediately sounding the alarm on the dangers of lead. For weeks the two women, flanked by volunteers, handed out leaflets around the site of the cathedral – in bars, shops and near apartment buildings. They informed local residents of best practices like regular hand-washing, cleaning clothes at high temperatures and taking shoes off before walking into their homes, imploring them to avoid anything that could spread toxic lead dust.
In the meantime, the collective also called on authorities to take urgent action to confine the cathedral and decontaminate it immediately – but also inform those working or living near the site about the risks. “Nothing was done,” Toullier lamented.
A pause in construction
Lead pollution only became a topic of concern three months after the fire, in the summer of 2019. Faced with very high levels of the metal and no measures implemented to curb its presence, the French Labour Inspectorate warned of a “dangerous situation for workers” inside the stricken cathedral. The city of Paris was eventually forced to suspend the reconstruction of Notre-Dame and cordon off the square in front of it, a move widely covered by media at the time.
In the weeks that followed, drastic protection measures were put into practice. Workers were required to wear overalls and high-protection masks, and a mandatory shower and foot bath system was implemented. “Measures to prevent lead exposure are stricter than anywhere else,” French MP Sophie Mette stated in a 2022 parliamentary report on the site.
“But Notre-Dame was not the only location to be affected,” Toullier pointed out. “Lead levels were very high all around the cathedral, on metro platforms, in bookshops on the Place Saint-Michel and even in surrounding schools.”
At the end of summer 2019, Notre-Dame Lead reported levels of up to 123,000 μg/m², which represented 25 times the "standard" threshold of 5,000 µg/m² set by the regional health authority ARS, at the Place Saint-Michel, a 10-minute walk from the cathedral. “Yet no significant clean-up operation was carried out. It was as if the problem didn’t exist,” Toullier lamented.
Read moreForeign artisans rolled up their sleeves to help rebuild France's Notre-Dame Cathedral
Widely shared by the collective, the alarming figures pushed some artisans to action. “Some unionised workers demanded to exercise their right of withdrawal [from the works] or asked for lead tests to be carried out so they could measure the level of lead in their blood,” explained Benoît Martin, secretary of the Paris branch of the CGT trade union and member of the Notre-Dame Lead group. Some surrounding schools even decided to postpone the start of the new academic year in order to carry out a thorough clean-up.
In June 2021, the French Public Health agency concluded that the Notre-Dame fire had not caused a “significant” increase in blood lead levels for children living nearby. The public was reassured, but the collective remained sceptical. “We don’t know who had their blood tested or when,” Thébaud-Mony said. “But more importantly, the authorities waited far too long to carry out the tests. Once three weeks have passed it is no longer possible to detect lead in the bloodstream. It has either been evacuated or stored in the bones.”
Tired of not being heard, the collective eventually filed a complaint for endangering others in July 2021. The investigation is still ongoing.
For Judith Rainhorn, a historian specialised in lead pollution, the silence from authorities came as no surprise. For her, it is “yet another episode in the long history of denying the toxicity of lead”.
“We have been using lead on a massive scale since the 19th century. It is a familiar product and that is why we tend to play down the risks,” Rainhorn explained. “Unlike asbestos, it still has a fairly positive reputation. That is starting to change, but it is taking time.”
Notre-Dame de Paris is preparing to open its doors to the public on December 8 after five years of rebuilding. From its iconic spire to its impressive roof, the cathedral is once again visible on the Paris skyline. But behind the scenes of this grand reopening lies a darker truth.
“It was the perfect opportunity to raise awareness of the dangers of lead,” said Mathé Toullier, who spearheads Notre-Dame Lead (collectif "plomb Notre-Dame" in French), a group of associations. “But we missed our chance.” Founded just after the fire that ravaged the cathedral in 2019, the group was created to sound the alarm on the dangers associated with the metal.
Touiller is also president of an organisation that supports victims of lead poisoning and their families. When she saw the huge yellow cloud rising from Notre-Dame five years ago, she quickly became concerned. “I immediately knew what was happening. Lead dust was spreading all across the capital,” she recalled.
As the flames engulfed the cathedral, a whopping 400 tonnes of lead from the roof and spire went up in smoke, according to French authorities. The cloud then continued its journey well beyond the city of light and travelled 16 kilometres east of Paris, according to the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
Dangers of lead
It has been widely documented that lead can be toxic, even in small doses. “However much a person is exposed, lead poisoning can cause neurological, renal or cardiovascular problems – especially in children but also in adults. It can also impact fertility, increase the risk of cancer or cause foetal abnormalities in pregnant women,” explained Annie Thébaud-Mony, a public health researcher at France's national institute of health and medical research (INSERM) and president of the Henri Pézérat association.
"There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects," the World Health Organization reports in its lead poisoning fact-sheet. And according to a study published in 2023 by the Lancet Planetary Health journal, 5.5 million people worldwide died from lead-related cardiovascular illnesses in 2019.
Read moreNotre-Dame set for further restorations, thanks to generous donations
The day after Notre-Dame caught fire, Toullier and Thébaud-Mony launched their collective, immediately sounding the alarm on the dangers of lead. For weeks the two women, flanked by volunteers, handed out leaflets around the site of the cathedral – in bars, shops and near apartment buildings. They informed local residents of best practices like regular hand-washing, cleaning clothes at high temperatures and taking shoes off before walking into their homes, imploring them to avoid anything that could spread toxic lead dust.
In the meantime, the collective also called on authorities to take urgent action to confine the cathedral and decontaminate it immediately – but also inform those working or living near the site about the risks. “Nothing was done,” Toullier lamented.
A pause in construction
Lead pollution only became a topic of concern three months after the fire, in the summer of 2019. Faced with very high levels of the metal and no measures implemented to curb its presence, the French Labour Inspectorate warned of a “dangerous situation for workers” inside the stricken cathedral. The city of Paris was eventually forced to suspend the reconstruction of Notre-Dame and cordon off the square in front of it, a move widely covered by media at the time.
In the weeks that followed, drastic protection measures were put into practice. Workers were required to wear overalls and high-protection masks, and a mandatory shower and foot bath system was implemented. “Measures to prevent lead exposure are stricter than anywhere else,” French MP Sophie Mette stated in a 2022 parliamentary report on the site.
“But Notre-Dame was not the only location to be affected,” Toullier pointed out. “Lead levels were very high all around the cathedral, on metro platforms, in bookshops on the Place Saint-Michel and even in surrounding schools.”
At the end of summer 2019, Notre-Dame Lead reported levels of up to 123,000 μg/m², which represented 25 times the "standard" threshold of 5,000 µg/m² set by the regional health authority ARS, at the Place Saint-Michel, a 10-minute walk from the cathedral. “Yet no significant clean-up operation was carried out. It was as if the problem didn’t exist,” Toullier lamented.
Read moreForeign artisans rolled up their sleeves to help rebuild France's Notre-Dame Cathedral
Widely shared by the collective, the alarming figures pushed some artisans to action. “Some unionised workers demanded to exercise their right of withdrawal [from the works] or asked for lead tests to be carried out so they could measure the level of lead in their blood,” explained Benoît Martin, secretary of the Paris branch of the CGT trade union and member of the Notre-Dame Lead group. Some surrounding schools even decided to postpone the start of the new academic year in order to carry out a thorough clean-up.
In June 2021, the French Public Health agency concluded that the Notre-Dame fire had not caused a “significant” increase in blood lead levels for children living nearby. The public was reassured, but the collective remained sceptical. “We don’t know who had their blood tested or when,” Thébaud-Mony said. “But more importantly, the authorities waited far too long to carry out the tests. Once three weeks have passed it is no longer possible to detect lead in the bloodstream. It has either been evacuated or stored in the bones.”
Tired of not being heard, the collective eventually filed a complaint for endangering others in July 2021. The investigation is still ongoing.
For Judith Rainhorn, a historian specialised in lead pollution, the silence from authorities came as no surprise. For her, it is “yet another episode in the long history of denying the toxicity of lead”.
“We have been using lead on a massive scale since the 19th century. It is a familiar product and that is why we tend to play down the risks,” Rainhorn explained. “Unlike asbestos, it still has a fairly positive reputation. That is starting to change, but it is taking time.”
Rebuilding an identical structure - lead roof and all
The decision to rebuild the spire and roof of Notre-Dame exactly as they had been in the 19th century by covering them in lead deepened the anger already felt by the members of Notre-Dame Lead and raised the eyebrows of politicians, non-profits and local residents.
To justify the decision, the institution in charge of restoring the cathedral, Rebuilding Notre-Dame de Paris, ruled out any danger of direct exposure to the substance. “Covering the roof structures of the nave, the choir and two arms of the transept with lead does not expose any member of the public to lead, as they are located some forty metres from the ground and are inaccessible,” the institution told French daily newspaper La Croix in a December 2023 article, assuring it was taking the matter “very seriously”.
“But what about run-off water from the roof, which will be laden with lead?” asked Thébaud-Mony. In a notice published in January 2021, the French High Council for Public Health estimated that “the roof of Notre-Dame alone … would emit around 21kg of lead per year (about two tonnes per century) in run-off water”.
“And what will happen if there is another fire?” Thébaud-Mony insisted.
“We are obviously complying with the law and regulations in all areas concerned. No one’s health is being put at risk. In addition to new fire protection of the highest standard, including a misting system in the attic … we are going to innovate by installing a system that collects and filters rainwater running off the cathedral roof,” the institution told French daily Le Figaro in December 2023.
“Lead could have been replaced by another substance like zinc or copper,” said Thébaud-Mony. “When alternatives exist, why choose lead and risk human health?” This was the case for the Chartres cathedral, destroyed by a fire in 1836. The original structure had lead roofing, which was replaced by copper when it was rebuilt. Though perceived as less stable, copper is significantly less toxic.
Long-term monitoring
With just a few days to go before the grand reopening, the collective has decided not to give up. “I am worried because lead pollution, regardless of whether it is inside or outside, is still there – especially with the new spire and roof. We cannot give up,” Thébaud-Mony concluded.
“Sensors should be installed to measure lead levels inside the cathedral on a regular basis,” union representative Martin insisted. “We need to ensure there are no risks to visitors.”
For now, the collective is calling on authorities to ensure workers who helped rebuild Notre-Dame and local residents are monitored in the long-run. “What we fear is that people will fall ill without necessarily making the connection to lead,” Martin said. “Illness can creep in long after exposure and the link to lead can quickly be forgotten.”
(This article was originally published in French and translated into English by Lara Bullens)
Foreign artisans rolled up their sleeves to help rebuild France's Notre-Dame Cathedral
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Explainer
Paris's Notre-Dame Cathedral reopens on December 7, five years after a devastating fire left it in tatters. As part of a monumental effort to restore the Gothic landmark to its former glory, artisans from all over the world stepped in to do their part. From a Belgian organ builder to an American timber framer, each contributed unique expertise.
Issued on: 02/12/2024 -
By: Lara BULLENS
From left to right: glass painters Stephan Lübbers, Felix Busse, Elodie Schneider, Stefan Lücking and Sascha Aretz stand atop Notre-Dame. © Stefan Lücking
It was a day that would go down in history. As Parisians were streaming out of their work places on April 15, 2019 – joining the rush hour parade to scutter home or pick up their children from school – dark hues of reddish orange and plumes of smoke filled the sky. Notre-Dame de Paris, the landmark cathedral in the heart of the city, was burning.
Read moreWorld 'watches and weeps' as Notre-Dame burns
The blaze gutted the landmark, destroying the roof and causing the steeple to collapse. In the aftermath of the disaster, images from inside Notre-Dame showed its immense walls standing sturdily with statues still in place and a gleaming golden cross above the altar – and the floor covered in charred rubble from the fallen roof. Entire sections of vaulting at the top of the structure had collapsed. And although the bell towers and most of the iconic circular stained-glass windows remained intact, the damage left France reeling in shock.
What came next was a rocky five-year road to restoration that required monumental efforts. Around 250 companies and hundreds of artisans, architects and other experts got down to brass tacks to reconstruct Notre-Dame – with costs reaching into the hundreds of millions of euros. There was also the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused significant delays.
Works eventually resumed in 2021 with skilled carpenters, glassmakers and stonemasons rolling up their sleeves to toil across the cathedral site and workshops in France and beyond.
A masterpiece of Gothic architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage site, the iconic cathedral is now set to reopen its doors on December 7 and 8.
But this may not have been possible without the help of skilled craftsmen and -women from all over the world who pulled their weight in the reconstruction efforts.
Read moreNotre-Dame set for further restorations, thanks to generous donations
Johan Deblieck, the Belgian organ builder
Though the main organ of Notre-Dame was in large part spared by the flames, it was covered in soot and damaged by humidity. This was an “absolute miracle”, according to Olivier Latry, one of its main players.
It has now been fully cleaned but it will take six months of harmonisation before its 8,000 pipes recover their full sound potential.
In the meantime, the star of the show will get a little sibling, thanks to organ builder Johan Deblieck.
Read moreSpared from fire, Notre-Dame's organ set for lengthy restoration
Based in Lennik, a municipality southwest of Brussels, Belgium, Deblieck opened his workshop in 1993 and has become a global authority on “positives” – small pipe organs built to be more or less mobile. Hardly higher than a piano, these instruments have been used in religious functions since the Middle Ages.
In January 2023, he received a phone call that he said he would never forget. “I was asked if I would be interested in crafting a positive organ [for Notre-Dame] … and I was surprised by this question being asked on a simple phone call,” Deblieck recalled. He accepted the commission and was given a deadline for the end of October 2024.
Aside from being entrusted in 2020 with building an organ for the Bach-Archiv, a cultural institution in Germany dedicated to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach, Deblieck said the Notre-Dame order was “one of the most beautiful” he had received.
“There is nothing more prestigious than Notre-Dame de Paris,” Deblieck said. “I was shaken for three weeks.”
Johan Deblieck with one of his organs. © Courtesy of Johan Deblieck
The organ he crafted for Notre-Dame comprises just over 200 pipes and measures 1.25 by 1.15 metres. “It has wheels and can be moved around easily, but it is intended to be placed at the very front of the church where the choir is,” explained Deblieck. His instrument will join the great rood screen organ and the choir organ in the cathedral, serving its purpose by accompanying services and choirs for years to come.
When the positive organ sounds, Deblieck explained, “there is a sort of alchemy that occurs between the sounds that emanate from it and the person who plays it.” But he said the true magic happens when it is used for improvisation, a talent he believes Latry masters.
In two weeks time, Deblieck will travel down to Paris to deliver the organ himself. “I think it is going to be a strange and surreal moment,” he admitted.
Will Gusakov, the American timber framer
Will Gusakov found out about Notre-Dame catching fire in 2019 when a friend of his from Paris sent him a photo. “I was incredulous,” he recalled. “How could that possibly be happening?” he remembered asking himself.
Gusakov is a craftsman who runs a timber framing company in Vermont, USA. His journey to eventually joining in the effort to rebuild Notre-Dame began with Carpenters Without Borders, an organisation based in France made up of traditional woodworkers who volunteer to restore unique constructions like moat bridges in Normandy or vernacular houses in China.
The tight-knit community spoke about what was going to happen to this pivotal architectural heritage that had been lost and brainstormed on how they could contribute. Two French companies with knowledge of the centuries-old carpentry methods used to build Notre-Dame in the 13th century were eventually chosen to lead the project. Traditional carpenter Loïc Desmonts, based in Normandy, would rebuild the nave woodwork alongside Ateliers Perrault, a company in western France specialising in historical monuments.
But they couldn’t do it alone, so the tight-knit community from Carpenters Without Borders stepped in to help, including Gusakov. He packed up and moved to rural Normany for six months with his wife and two young children, ready to pause life in Vermont to take part in this mammoth task. More than 1,000 centuries-old oaks would have to be felled to build the nave and the choir, with another 800 for Notre-Dame’s spire alone. Each beam would be shaped by hand axe into its necessary rectangular form. “I was worried that I was being very selfish, but my wife was very supportive,” he admitted.
“It was better than a dream,” Gusakov remembered.
It was a day that would go down in history. As Parisians were streaming out of their work places on April 15, 2019 – joining the rush hour parade to scutter home or pick up their children from school – dark hues of reddish orange and plumes of smoke filled the sky. Notre-Dame de Paris, the landmark cathedral in the heart of the city, was burning.
Read moreWorld 'watches and weeps' as Notre-Dame burns
The blaze gutted the landmark, destroying the roof and causing the steeple to collapse. In the aftermath of the disaster, images from inside Notre-Dame showed its immense walls standing sturdily with statues still in place and a gleaming golden cross above the altar – and the floor covered in charred rubble from the fallen roof. Entire sections of vaulting at the top of the structure had collapsed. And although the bell towers and most of the iconic circular stained-glass windows remained intact, the damage left France reeling in shock.
What came next was a rocky five-year road to restoration that required monumental efforts. Around 250 companies and hundreds of artisans, architects and other experts got down to brass tacks to reconstruct Notre-Dame – with costs reaching into the hundreds of millions of euros. There was also the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused significant delays.
Works eventually resumed in 2021 with skilled carpenters, glassmakers and stonemasons rolling up their sleeves to toil across the cathedral site and workshops in France and beyond.
A masterpiece of Gothic architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage site, the iconic cathedral is now set to reopen its doors on December 7 and 8.
But this may not have been possible without the help of skilled craftsmen and -women from all over the world who pulled their weight in the reconstruction efforts.
Read moreNotre-Dame set for further restorations, thanks to generous donations
Johan Deblieck, the Belgian organ builder
Though the main organ of Notre-Dame was in large part spared by the flames, it was covered in soot and damaged by humidity. This was an “absolute miracle”, according to Olivier Latry, one of its main players.
It has now been fully cleaned but it will take six months of harmonisation before its 8,000 pipes recover their full sound potential.
In the meantime, the star of the show will get a little sibling, thanks to organ builder Johan Deblieck.
Read moreSpared from fire, Notre-Dame's organ set for lengthy restoration
Based in Lennik, a municipality southwest of Brussels, Belgium, Deblieck opened his workshop in 1993 and has become a global authority on “positives” – small pipe organs built to be more or less mobile. Hardly higher than a piano, these instruments have been used in religious functions since the Middle Ages.
In January 2023, he received a phone call that he said he would never forget. “I was asked if I would be interested in crafting a positive organ [for Notre-Dame] … and I was surprised by this question being asked on a simple phone call,” Deblieck recalled. He accepted the commission and was given a deadline for the end of October 2024.
Aside from being entrusted in 2020 with building an organ for the Bach-Archiv, a cultural institution in Germany dedicated to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach, Deblieck said the Notre-Dame order was “one of the most beautiful” he had received.
“There is nothing more prestigious than Notre-Dame de Paris,” Deblieck said. “I was shaken for three weeks.”
Johan Deblieck with one of his organs. © Courtesy of Johan DeblieckThe organ he crafted for Notre-Dame comprises just over 200 pipes and measures 1.25 by 1.15 metres. “It has wheels and can be moved around easily, but it is intended to be placed at the very front of the church where the choir is,” explained Deblieck. His instrument will join the great rood screen organ and the choir organ in the cathedral, serving its purpose by accompanying services and choirs for years to come.
When the positive organ sounds, Deblieck explained, “there is a sort of alchemy that occurs between the sounds that emanate from it and the person who plays it.” But he said the true magic happens when it is used for improvisation, a talent he believes Latry masters.
In two weeks time, Deblieck will travel down to Paris to deliver the organ himself. “I think it is going to be a strange and surreal moment,” he admitted.
Will Gusakov, the American timber framer
Will Gusakov found out about Notre-Dame catching fire in 2019 when a friend of his from Paris sent him a photo. “I was incredulous,” he recalled. “How could that possibly be happening?” he remembered asking himself.
Gusakov is a craftsman who runs a timber framing company in Vermont, USA. His journey to eventually joining in the effort to rebuild Notre-Dame began with Carpenters Without Borders, an organisation based in France made up of traditional woodworkers who volunteer to restore unique constructions like moat bridges in Normandy or vernacular houses in China.
The tight-knit community spoke about what was going to happen to this pivotal architectural heritage that had been lost and brainstormed on how they could contribute. Two French companies with knowledge of the centuries-old carpentry methods used to build Notre-Dame in the 13th century were eventually chosen to lead the project. Traditional carpenter Loïc Desmonts, based in Normandy, would rebuild the nave woodwork alongside Ateliers Perrault, a company in western France specialising in historical monuments.
But they couldn’t do it alone, so the tight-knit community from Carpenters Without Borders stepped in to help, including Gusakov. He packed up and moved to rural Normany for six months with his wife and two young children, ready to pause life in Vermont to take part in this mammoth task. More than 1,000 centuries-old oaks would have to be felled to build the nave and the choir, with another 800 for Notre-Dame’s spire alone. Each beam would be shaped by hand axe into its necessary rectangular form. “I was worried that I was being very selfish, but my wife was very supportive,” he admitted.
“It was better than a dream,” Gusakov remembered.
Will Gusakov at the workshop in Normandy. © Courtesy of Will Gusakov.
A dream that required a lot of hard work, he later admitted. For the last three months of his time at the Desmonts atelier, Gusakov was the shop lead for figuring out the principal trusses. “They are the roof triangles that hold up the roof and the principal ones really carry the loads. In the nave roof there is 11 of them and they are very cool. For a timber framer, they are very sexy,” he laughed.
“But the rebuild was incredibly complex because we were basically making a replica of the frame as it has been down to every single individual piece, of which there were hundreds slightly different than the next,” Gusakov explained. “We were reproducing all the idiosyncrasies.”
The final result stands as proof that these centuries-old techniques and manual tools have stood the test of time. But also that these methods are still efficient.
“How many kids staring at their iPads are even aware that they can grow up to be a stonecutter, a traditional carpenter, a mason?” Gusakov’s colleague Hank Silver told the New York Times in an interview.
Though he will not be attending the opening ceremony, Gusakov hopes to travel to France in March with his family to visit friends and see his work.
“There will be a kind of reconnection there,” he said of the trip. “I feel excited and proud that the building will be open to the public again.”
Stefan Lücking, the German glass painter
One of the treasures of the Notre-Dame cathedral was its stained-glass windows, which escaped significant damage. However, the fire blackened many of the windows, which required them to be dismantled and restored to their former glory. That is where Stefan Lücking stepped in.
He remembers watching TV at home with his family when news of the Notre-Dame fire came on. “My daughter said, ‘Oh, maybe you could work on fixing the windows?’” he recalled, laughing at the precision of her prophecy.
“I didn’t believe it at the time, but one or two years later, we got a call [asking if he could] work on Notre-Dame,” Lücking smiled.
Four stained-glass windows from the burnt landmark were shipped to Germany, two of which landed in the hands of Lücking and his partner Stephan Lübbers, both professional glass painters. Based in Borchen, the craftsmen spent between the summer of 2022 and September of 2024 restoring two 72-metre squared windows. They spent endless hours clearing off the charred glass and putting together the pieces that had been broken from the dismantlement.
A dream that required a lot of hard work, he later admitted. For the last three months of his time at the Desmonts atelier, Gusakov was the shop lead for figuring out the principal trusses. “They are the roof triangles that hold up the roof and the principal ones really carry the loads. In the nave roof there is 11 of them and they are very cool. For a timber framer, they are very sexy,” he laughed.
“But the rebuild was incredibly complex because we were basically making a replica of the frame as it has been down to every single individual piece, of which there were hundreds slightly different than the next,” Gusakov explained. “We were reproducing all the idiosyncrasies.”
The final result stands as proof that these centuries-old techniques and manual tools have stood the test of time. But also that these methods are still efficient.
“How many kids staring at their iPads are even aware that they can grow up to be a stonecutter, a traditional carpenter, a mason?” Gusakov’s colleague Hank Silver told the New York Times in an interview.
Though he will not be attending the opening ceremony, Gusakov hopes to travel to France in March with his family to visit friends and see his work.
“There will be a kind of reconnection there,” he said of the trip. “I feel excited and proud that the building will be open to the public again.”
Stefan Lücking, the German glass painter
One of the treasures of the Notre-Dame cathedral was its stained-glass windows, which escaped significant damage. However, the fire blackened many of the windows, which required them to be dismantled and restored to their former glory. That is where Stefan Lücking stepped in.
He remembers watching TV at home with his family when news of the Notre-Dame fire came on. “My daughter said, ‘Oh, maybe you could work on fixing the windows?’” he recalled, laughing at the precision of her prophecy.
“I didn’t believe it at the time, but one or two years later, we got a call [asking if he could] work on Notre-Dame,” Lücking smiled.
Four stained-glass windows from the burnt landmark were shipped to Germany, two of which landed in the hands of Lücking and his partner Stephan Lübbers, both professional glass painters. Based in Borchen, the craftsmen spent between the summer of 2022 and September of 2024 restoring two 72-metre squared windows. They spent endless hours clearing off the charred glass and putting together the pieces that had been broken from the dismantlement.
From left to right: glass painters Stephan Lübbers, Felix Busse, Elodie Schneider, Stefan Lücking and Sascha Aretz stand atop Notre-Dame. © Courtesy of Stefan Lücking
“The windows were in a better condition than we thought they would be,” he said. But it was a lot of work. “We had to use silicone glue to put back the broken pieces that were all different shapes and sizes, between three and twenty centimetres.”
Along with two other glass workers from Cologne, Lücking and his partner travelled to Paris to install the window frames in January 2023. A few months later, they went back to install the windows and then again in September 2024 to remove the protection in front of the windows.
“It was very impressive to see the cathedral from those angles, to have those views, and to see everyone working. I think there were around 400 or 500 people at the cathedral [when we visited],” he recalled.
“It was overwhelming,” Lücking admitted, aware of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “We were sure we would never see the cathedral like that again.”
He hopes to visit the cathedral when the crowds of tourists quell over time, perhaps in the summer of 2025.
The grand reopening is expected to bring 14 to 15 million visitors to Notre-Dame annually, surpassing the 12 million who visited in 2017.
“The windows were in a better condition than we thought they would be,” he said. But it was a lot of work. “We had to use silicone glue to put back the broken pieces that were all different shapes and sizes, between three and twenty centimetres.”
Along with two other glass workers from Cologne, Lücking and his partner travelled to Paris to install the window frames in January 2023. A few months later, they went back to install the windows and then again in September 2024 to remove the protection in front of the windows.
“It was very impressive to see the cathedral from those angles, to have those views, and to see everyone working. I think there were around 400 or 500 people at the cathedral [when we visited],” he recalled.
“It was overwhelming,” Lücking admitted, aware of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “We were sure we would never see the cathedral like that again.”
He hopes to visit the cathedral when the crowds of tourists quell over time, perhaps in the summer of 2025.
The grand reopening is expected to bring 14 to 15 million visitors to Notre-Dame annually, surpassing the 12 million who visited in 2017.
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