Five years after Paris watched Notre Dame Cathedral burn, the 861-year-old structure has been restored. It is slated to reopen its doors to the public on Sunday, December 8, with two Catholic masses will commemorating the event.
Following the April 2019 blaze, €846 million ($891 million) was raised in donations from 340,000 donors across 150 countries, with additional funds allocated to other monuments. It was a tremendous project: more than 2,000 artisans were involved; building materials included a felled oak tree that once stood 88 feet tall. 14,000 square feet of stone was replaced, 8,000 organ pipes were cleaned, and 1,500 solid oak pews were hewed and installed.
The cathedral was also rigorously cleaned as part of the restoration. Its marble mosaics and stained glass windows got a shine, and its frescoes were retouched.
In November, the eight restored bells from Notre Dame’s northern belfry, which was partially destroyed in the fire, rang as a test ahead of the planned reopening.
At the top of the building, the spire was restored with its famous golden rooster replaced with a phoenix. Located just underneath, a set of copper sculptures of the twelve apostles and the four New Testament evangelists, which narrowly missed the fire due to planned restoration work, will return to the cathedral early next year.
“Since more than eight centuries this cathedral was here. It resisted to two world wars, so many battles and campaigns. The decision to rebuild Notre Dame was about our capacity to save, restore, sometimes reinvent what we are by preserving where we come from. This is a message of achievement,” French President Emmanuel Macron told CNN.
Notre Dame expects to reopen to as many as 40,000 visitors each day.
