Paris.
Four windows damaged in the cathedral fire are now back in Paris. They were restored in the Cologne Cathedral workshop.
When the afternoon sun shines on the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, the interior fills more and more with colorful light. Shortly before the fourth anniversary of the devastating fire in the Gothic building, the installation of the huge clerestory windows began. Four of them were restored in the Cologne Cathedral workshop for about a year.
“It’s a great honor to work here,” says master glass refiner Felix Busse. Together with two glass painters from Borchen in Westphalia and a French restorer, he will spend the next three weeks on scaffolding on the south wall of the cathedral.
“The windows are about 25 square meters and each divided into 80 panes, which are now gradually being installed,” explains Busse. These are stained glass windows by the French glass artist Jacques de Chevalier, who created them in 1965.
Because Notre-Dame Cathedral is still contaminated with lead, the craftsmen have to shower and change their clothes every time they leave the site. In the fire, 400 tons of lead had melted and partly evaporated. “The windows also had to be freed from lead dust before the restoration,” says Busse. The fire had done little damage to the windows, but they needed careful cleaning and patching.
Donation money from Germany
The fact that the Cologne cathedral workshop is involved in the restoration goes back to the initiative of the former Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet (CDU). He advocated that the German donations of half a million euros should flow into a presentable project after the fire.
In France, the German offer of help met with little enthusiasm – the restoration of the cathedral became a state affair. A total of 854 million euros in donations had been received, which had to be used efficiently.
In France, however, because of the separation of church and state, the state is responsible for the preservation of the churches – and they wanted to turn Notre-Dame into a showcase of French craftsmanship. So instead of celebrating the German help as a sign of friendship, a secret was kept about it.
Now the windows are back in Paris. For the anniversary, the base of the spire is also to be placed on the roof. The 19th-century ridge turret fell in the fire on April 15, 2019. Inside, the work is well advanced, the vaults have been renewed, walls and paintings have been cleaned, many scaffoldings have already been dismantled. The reopening is scheduled for December 8, 2024.
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