Restoring Reason, Beauty, and Trust in Architecture, Part 15: Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

Episode Topic: Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

Prof. Toshiyuki Kono explores the rich history of Notre-Dame de Paris, the challenges faced during its restoration following the 2019 fire, and the pressing questions that arose throughout the process.

Featured Speakers:
-Toshiyuki Kono, emeritus professor of private international law, Kyushu University

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This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Restoring Reason, Beauty, and Trust in Architecture.

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Transcript

Introduction to Toshi

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I'm very proud to introduce my old friend to, to you. I know Toshi since 39 years. He's a lawyer. he's a, he's, he's occupied. His main occupation is the law, his hobbyist music, and he's an international figure. He speaks English, French, Italian, very good. German, I know no other non-German who speaks so well, like Toshi. And he's professor for international private law in KSU University, in Japan. International private law is. With keeping up important buildings. He was engaged in keeping up one of the oldest Japanese, harbor cities, which was gonna be destroyed. That was your first engagement. And, to tell everything he had done would last for hours. But as a matter of fact, shortly before the Cathedral of Na Dam down, he became president of I Commerce, which is the most important organization for, keeping up important buildings. Do it in an international, give it into a national scale. And, one story I have to tell you before, he will start, he once told me he had to go to Bhutan, a small country in the Himalaya, and there was a cloister, which was over a thousand years old. They rented out from the cloister to the local administration, a few hundred square meters since 600 years. And now both institution wanted air conditioning and balconies in a building of a thousand years. Imagine building balconies and air conditioning on, which is much younger. So these are the topics where, Toshi, is asked because he has the enthusiasm for the arc, for the beauty, and he has, rationality, the thinking of lawmakers, have to have. So the floor is yours.

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Thank you, Thomas,

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for

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your

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two Nice introduction. Afternoon everybody. Thank you for having me today. today I chose the topic, the Notre Dame. we, when the Notre Dame was heavily damaged by the fire 2019, I was the president. eCommerce e-commerce is the abbreviation of International Council of Monuments and sites, and e-commerce is one of the advisory bodies, of, unesco, especially for the World heritage markets. And so, we played, a pretty important role for the Waterhead business. And the not dam is of course, part of the water he, in Paris. So I, and then it was just completed the last December, so I thought that it could be pretty topical. Lemme start. So this is the outline of my talk today. First I explain a little bit about the history of RA and, the second is the incident and then the restoration reconstruction, and then intangible culture, heritage, and then the current states. I was there last week, so I put, I took some pictures and share it with you. And then, a few slides to, to compare, the case, other, cases. so the, not dame, was build the construction started, the 12th century. and it started from the eastern part and gradually it progressed to, to the east, after the west to the west. So it took about an 80 years to, build the foundational part. so it took like, like this, it, and then the, by 13th century, the two bell towers were, completed. and then the, the transcript was added also. and in, in century, the wooden spire, who built it is not known, today, and it was much, shorter than the spire that we know. the, although the foundational parts, was completed then, this, it's constantly the modification, and addition were made. so the, The first architect's name, appeared, in a record is John de she, and then the, but he was, he, of course he didn't see the completion of the foundation heart. and the last, the big work was added by the Raymond Ampler. and then it more or less the, building of the Notre Dame, we know, which was completed. And, since then to the 18th century, the, from architectural point of view, not much was added, but, the, insight it was pretty much, different at that time form the catheter that. We know now. so this is the, the late 18th century. as we don't see that, you know, the on oil buildings, exhibited in the hall, but it was the case,

1 5:41

at that time.

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And this is the late 17th century, interior of Notre Dame. I show you the current ced later picture of the casted later. But this is big difference now. And also the, as you see, the, the glasses, white glasses, because the, the priests, wanted to have a more light in, in the cath. So they, eliminated the colored glasses. well, the not Dame, So the Notre Dame, became, important. but the, well,

1 6:16

let this way,

Victor Hugo's Influence

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okay. So Notre Dame became very important. so the, ceremonies, took place, important estate ceremonies took place. the good example is the coronation of the Nepal. so the, eh, it was, it took place here and then, the north term could accommodate, hundreds of people, attend the ceremony. and then the contract was signed between, Catholic church and in the States. So that's the, the separation of the, religion and then state was established, but still the state used the cathedral for a very, important role. And this fact, the, from the, from the viewpoint of the French history, there are other important cathedrals, like a house for the correlation or the Ani, but the Notre Dam as a cathedral in the capital, the fact that it was, it is located in, in, in a capital played a very important role. So, it still, the politically important, events that take place in this and, the was heavily damaged, af during the French Revolution. And, it was not allow, the cathed was closed for three years and they, it was not allowed to use the cathed as the place for wash it. And even, it was, reopened. the cathedral was used as a temple rational rationality so that the, the Catholics were allowed to use only a part of the building, they parts. So, through these, events, consider was in a horrible condition and there was, a serious discussion, if the catheter should be demolished. but then there, there was, So group of people who supported the, to maintain the cath, heavily influenced by the, and this, this far. Victor Hugo played very crucial role to, save not alone. without him, probably the consider would've been demolished. He wrote, as you know, the famous p work Notam Ali. And in that piece, he praised the beauty of the building, importance of the medieval architecture. So, he, actually also, criticized the other vandalism, which took place, in the cathedral. So that he actually played a very, crucial role. And then the state decided to, to keep, to maintain the cathedral and then organized, a competition for the restoration. Large scale restoration. Large scale restoration. And these two gentlemen here, won the competition. and, duke, the lashes, passed shortly after the competition. So, the de facto, the took over, the entire project. And he, his approach his, he's a, he's a, he believed in the importance of medieval architecture, but at the same time, he had a very strong view about his medieval image. And, so, well, the, these are the, one of the conditions of the competition, a restore, the, important parts of the buildings and reconstruct, for instance, re reconstruction of the, large windows reinforce the, iron reinforcement of the south, gables and et cetera, et cetera. So that was a very large scale restoration. And at the same time, he brought these glass, colored stained glasses back, to, to the cathedral. and well, he, re-built the squire. The squire was, as I said, that, shorter. And, also in a pretty bad condition. because the wings, strong wings affected the stability of spire. So, he reconstructed it, but he argued that in Paris, that spire must be higher. it gives a bigger presence. And he did it. And also, as you see here, the, he put, interesting figures. You may know the, you know, the, a little bit monster like, creatures or, the saints. And he created his medieval cathedrals by adding these figures to captain, to dam. So the Notre Dame, we knew before the fire was the Northern dam, sort of recreated by from the today's, philosophy or today's approach of heritage conservation or conservation of, historic buildings. Ucs approach was heavy, has been heavily criticized. So the, adding something, you know, by the conservation architects, is being, not today's, it's a taboo. it's, very strictly, let's say controlled. But, at his time was, a, well, he, he has done that. Well, there are a lot of stories about himself, but I don't go into that detail. Well, these are the figures that he added and, one of his science saints, people say that, looks like him. So he put himself, on, on one of the, the roofs. And there's an interesting story, about the, the restoration, this style. But I will come, come back maybe after, afterwards. But please remember that these one plants, saints look like him. And this is the, yeah. he's medieval images and, okay, so, but the NOTAM was probably one of the most famous, cathedrals in the world. Probably one of the most frequently visited, historical monuments. And, it was for me, a big shock to know that the smoke came out from the cathedral on the April 15th, 2019. And the, how it happens is still unknown, not yet clearly identified, but apparently it was around the foot of the spire. And because there was, sort of restoration for the restoration, the, the metal structure was added. and apparently from that area, the snow came out. But as the alarm was installed and a alarm round ones. The person in charge of the security went to the sport, but he didn't find anything. So 30 years, 30, 30 minutes later, the around run again. And he went back. Then it was already sort of to, to late, to, extinguish by himself. Himself. So he called, the fire station. and, they came, but it was, you know, the roof, is, you know, the me from medieval period. So the wood is called la it's look like a very, complex, forest. it's of course completely dry dried timber. So that it was, is very difficult. And also the, a sort of, the, just like a maze, you, you don't know which way you should go. So it was extremely challenging for, those who, dealt with this fire. And, this is, sketch made by, firefighters. the French firefighters and especially the firefighters in Paris and Marsai, they belong to the military. They only two, two cities, these fire firefighters who belong to the military and they're extremely well disciplined, extremely well trained, and that they are so well trained that they could immediately, make the sketch on site. On site. this was made on site. And, you see here that wind comes from the south, and the how, the description is also at the same type made. So based on that, they had to make a strategy where, to, where to tackle. And, eh, if I understand correctly, they, when they went up, they decided, they, they identified that the roof, they can't save anymore. So the target was to save the two bill towers. If two bill towers would collapse, then entire building would collapse. So that, that was a strategy. so, and it, until I think it, it started late afternoon on the April 19th and the, there was smoke until midnight. About midnight. the, by midnights, the, the fire was distinguished. the, there was still, a smoke, coming out. So this was, the pictures, immediately right after, the fire, that was before the fire. So the, the spire was completely gone. And in this part you see the. The roof is completely gone. It's also here, which is the big hole here. it was very, difficult was that this, scaffolding, was also melted, was, is pretty, complicated situation at the time. So this is the aerial view, of the roof. So you see that, there's a big hole here, I'm sorry, the big hole here. big hole here. And then the, the truss, above the vote was completely gone. You see still the, the, here you see still the, the rest of the,

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This is practice speaking is all gone.

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this is a picture from another cathedral to give you a little bit, image how the forest would like look like. So these are from, from some, from Kka in Romania. this cathedral was built maybe about a hundred, a hundred years old, 150 years later than the Notre Dame. but it's also the big, cathedral. So the trust looked like, like this. And then the vote from above looked like this. Another pictures of the disaster. I go rather quickly. And so this is the transcript part. You see the whole big hole or, and it was this, it's really, the horrible situation from above. Well, the president's, came to the site, on the same evening and he immediately declared that we will rebuild within five years. He declared on site. And, well, I, I tell you, a little bit, the sort of story after this five years and why five. So he made a commitment to rebuild it. The problem was, two days after the Prime Minister, not the president, but Prime Minister said that we'll organize a competition. So competition implied that, it would be open to the architects. So the architects, a lot of architects started to promote themselves by, introducing their original ideas. And the on, on the left one, this is probably the one of the modest ones. Modern one, the worst one. And, you know, this on the on, on righthand side. This is a very artistic approach. Another one was to put, let's say swimming pool there. So there's a lot of, ideas for promotion, et cetera, et cetera. E-commerce is the, group of experts of heritage conservation. So from the viewpoint of heritage conservation. So these ideas are just unacceptable. Okay. So, or as soon as these ideas, were published, I started to receive hundreds of emails, from my colleagues, from all over the world. Please stop it. Please stop it. it was indeed very worrisome situation, and I heard that the reason why, the Prime Minister mentioned the competition was that the, president Macron's wife is very close to acts. And, the, we guessed that there, there might be some lobbying from architects and you, and then the argument is that, look, Lou, Mr. Pay made, a beautiful pyramid. Why not? Why not? on, on, not, so that was, a sort of an argument and there was a lot of debates ongoing.

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the, so

Restoration Competition

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the, anyway, so he, he, since the president declared that he will, it'll be rebuilt. It must be rebuilt within five years. Of course. it's an enormously expensive event. Expensive, project. So the, the how to collect money wasn't a big issue, but surprisingly, from all over the world, a lot of us, started to arrive and, the, one of the richest, people in France immediately offered, the billions of dollars, and small donations and from in Europe and on also on outside Europe. I remember when I visited that the church in Romania, cathed in Romania, the eh, KKA is a tiny Romanian city and the Kka city made a donation to, for the restoration of Notre Dame. And experts in the Kka were furious'cause. They give money to France, but not to us. So that implies a very complicated situation. And in fact, eh, the, that sort of criticism, occurred criticism after the, a fundraising, event started. so this is, the, over here Notre Dame doula, mob shown tofu to farm. well, so these, there's a lot of money are coming arriving to Notre Dame. But for the poor, nothing. And in fact, at that time there was, social movement called Yellow Western movement that was, spread all over France. this is. It's not the violent, it's not the violent, but it was very quiet, but very, sort of, strong protest, from the socially weak. Socially weak are the people in a socially weaker position. And, so here in, in the placard they say that the millions of euros for the Notre Dam and, about for the poor. So that was the social background. and so yellow best movement. And, the, actually the president macro was very busy in dealing with these social movement. So on that day, the April 19th, he was scheduled to give, important speech about this, how the state would deal with this, movements. but he council that. And then he rushed to the cathedral. So the, it was very, politically and socially, not simple, events. Anyway, more than one year later, more than one year later, all the sudden the French government declared that the Notre Dame will be restored just before, like, like, like, like this, like, like before the fire. So this is, there's, no sort of open debate. There was no, let's say, even rumor, even if we wanted to know what the gov, French government wants to do with the Notre Dame. We, we didn't know, or, but all a sudden it was so declared. the, just when, and I explained that when the, interesting ideas were presented by the differents, there was a criticism within eCommerce. So I, as a president of eCommerce at that time, I felt that I need to do something. I need to do something. And I met the, president of French course, so it's a sort of national committee in France, and we, I had a very interesting discussion with him. And, the conclusion of our discussion was not to, to any action right now, it's better to stay quiet. The reason is, as I said, that it is a very particularly complicated situation, and it's so political that e-commerce would say something. Pro, pro-con conservation or against the, new ideas. Then somewhere, somewhere from the presidential circle may say that, okay, e-commerce, no, thank you, e-commerce, we don't need eCommerce. That will be a pretty, bad situation for heritage collaboration because we have e-commerce. France has a very important people e-commerce. France, has very important experts on the heritage conservation. And, more than half of chief, conservation architects of the French monuments, national Monuments, commerce members. So if they would be excluded, then it would be very complicated for what? France as well, and for eCommerce as well. So we decided to stay quiet. so we don't know how they, decided, but, I assume that the French experts, quietly, you know, the, not to make the big noise, but quietly talk to the different stakeholders. But anyway, so they, the, the decision was made. The goal is like to go to re restore the castral as it was just before the fire. So at the early stage before this decision was made, after one year, of course you had to do a lot of urgent measures. So I show some, pictures. This was a scaffolding. after the fire. And removing the scaffolding was a big challenge because it was melted. It was melted, but it sustained the remaining building as well. If you take simply, if you were to take off the scaffolding, the building would collapse. So that was very complicated situation. and so the, they put a lot of, frames, with wood, otherwise the, the, when strolling comes, anytime that the building could have scraps that way. So they put a lot of, B frames and beam. Yes. so that, that can be recover comparable. And then the, stone statutes, were removed again. This was the, I can show you. again, later. The, statutes were carefully wrapped and removed, but later they found out that some statutes were too fragile to, to restore, so they had to make a new statutes completely. this is an interesting picture. This is right after the fire. you see the cross there. it survived. It survived. And some religious people saw that, ah, this is the miracle. This is the miracle. And, so the, and also some people started to sell labels as this, ly Yes, it's, religious res. And they found out that, the one, debris, offered on the internet was a fake. A lot of stories online. And over here you see the, the robot is collecting, the gar, the debris. because the early stage, it was not possible for human beings to enter because the, the roof of the Notre Dame was made with lead and it melted and it's became sort of powder and you never know where it is. So until it is, leaned up, it was not possible for, for people to enter. That's why they used the robot. So they put also these, wooden frames and beams, and they built, the pool. The, the statues, luckily the, they have, they haveor, in, in, in the cathedral. But, the, eh, the people were so well trained that they successfully, and it took all treasures, out from the cathedral before the fire, got,

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it

Challenges in Restoration

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worse. But, you see that these, statutes were partly very heavily damaged. Okay? so, they have to remove scaffolding at the same time reinforcing the building. And this is, from inside, the, this, you can't identify what it is. And who administers this, this entire, project, they established, a special, body called, specifically in charge of the conservation and restoration of Al Cathedral. And as the top of the head of this organization, the President Macron, nominated the former general former Madura, the military parcel military pastor. I was, visited him in his office and he had office in the presidential palace. so I went to the, and to explain about the situation and exchange the views, and so on. And he said. I'm a military person, so I have a large voice, but don't be afraid. So this was his start. And I think with his strong leadership, I think the registration work was completed in December last year. He was extremely strong, personality. Once the conservation architects were saying, da or saying that, then he, gave a press conference. Architect should be, should sharp. It was very straightforward message from the general. Of course, it, some people are very much offended, but, that was very strong. Interesting, project is this. So they organized, researchers, group, horizontally organized throughout France and, for eight main subjects. two contribute to the restoration of not stone wood, metal glass structure, acoustic digital data. And interesting is the social emotions and mobilization. So not only the building itself, but its social impact, was also, the target of this group. So there are lots of, the articles were published, and also, but at the same time they contributed to the restoration. the reconstruction, well, the, what is the difference between reconstruction, restoration? You could see that still some. Material are there, but you reinforce it or you change a part of it. But in, well, in, if you see the cathedral as a whole, of course only the partial damage, big but partial damage. But if you see the roof only then completely gone and the fire is completely gone. So that part, you need to reconstruct with new materials. So this is, this has nothing to do with, this is the reconstruction. So I think in for the, after World War ii, I think in Europe, this is the, probably the largest pace of reconstruction. The, you know, the Europe suffered a lot during, through World Wars. and, so the did actually the debate about the reconstruction. Not that so, or active in Europe, in my view, until this instance. So that the, how to reconstruct, how to, explain this construction method, but they seriously, discussed and, well, this is the, so the important thing is documentation. Important thing is what, how is this documented? How is it recorded? and they, there's a research about the trust, for instance. it is in it's individual piece, but also they are, they identify that there are ologies, there are different type of trusses. So in order to reconstruct, as a cultural heritage, you have to. You have to follow this, you can't simply replace with a totally new, new designs and new, structure. So you have to, follow this project. And so this is, this was, this research was done manually by three experts, also eCommerce members. and so this first they identify the how, what, which type of trust was where. And then, they made this, and about the aspire. luckily, the Viol Duke, built a model and also he left, very detailed records. these records are available also. They, the followed, the Viol Duke's, approach. The volt was heavily damaged. as you see that there's a big hole. And they carefully analyzed, and then they identified that the large part of vol was also in a very bad condition. And also the tons of were poured. so they, they had to carefully examine. And, also the, some, let's say they collected stones. They collected some stones. And some stones are not usable anymore. So they have to, use the new stone. So the, they needed, woods or the timber for the roof and then the stoves. And also they needed, the leg. Well, this is also, from historical documents. They follow this. So they, collected the stones and reassemble that way to how to support the arch. but they couldn't use all of them, so they had to bring New Stone. So this is a more, scientific analysis of the stones

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and board and, the,

Stone Collection and Timber Needs

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for the, for the, to reconstruct the art. the, of course, the, after the World War ii, the knowhow was lost. So they had to, look, for information from other, cathedrals. So that was the, another cathedral, and then they found these pictures, and it was damaged like this. sorry. This, the German title is still there. well, the, they, used this opportunity to, clean the side Chucks the, in Notre Dame. there are, I don't know how many, I forgot how many. But there are, a number of cell chapels. And they were not in, in a, let's say, they were not restored for years. So they, they decided to clean. they then therefore the, chemical analysis is conducted. the stained glasses were taken and cleaned separately. They were taken and cleaned separately. I sent the new stones I needed. When the mono dam catheter was built, the stone was obtained from a quaran in Paris, but it's not possible to get it in Paris. But they, did a search that the, they found some quarries in France with the same, let's say same layers so that the defacto, this the quarry is from a different place, is a different place. But the stone is the same layers, so they claim that therefore the material is the same. oak trees, they had to, identify which oak trees can be used to build a trust, in the. They use a drone. They use a drone, and, they, they identify the, which trees can be used. And and a good story is that, a lot of, municipalities in France donated, the trees as a participation or the contributory participation in, in, in the project. so these, works, were, organized, by conservation architects and also the, the Ministry of Culture, but the, those who really build is the carpenters. So this, carpenters skills and techniques, Are considered very important because the, these, traditional skills ensures the authenticity, of the building. in from France, there are two important, let's say, in intangible culture, heritage elements On the representative list of 2003 UNESCO Convention in 2003. UNESCO Convention is for the safeguarding of intangible culture. Heritage, intangible culture. Heritage is tra typically traditional dialysis or traditional source, which can be, lost very easily. so how to maintain the tradition and then transmit to the next generation. That was. the, the concept behind and over here. the both are related to building techniques. One is, company Na. Another was a traditional hunt. the company, NA, this is the carpenter's, training tradition. The carpenters travel from one side to another, for, for several years. And they were trained in a different, sites, using the traditional tradition techniques. And this, tradition exists, over centuries. And this is and is, the, another, training of for carpenters. the carpenters have to read this, documents and this is the tool. Two dimensional documents, and they have to make a 3D structure. So the, and on, on the other hand, they also need to, draw this, this, this, make a drawing. And so the, they could, the carpenters are trained to collect between two dimensional documents and the three dimensional and the structure. And this, training is exists also, over centuries in France. And so they, now, they say that thanks to these traditional techniques and, the same materials, the, that your authenticity of the building is ensured, although it reconstructed. So this is the logic. So this is how to, make, how to cut the trees. They don't use the, chainsaw or modern equipment. They simply, use, like, like this one. as it was practiced in medieval period. And this is the trial, this one is a trial. I'm sorry. how they wanted to know how long it'll take to, to make this trust. So that was a collaboration between architect students of, the Chao or, and also the carpenters, young carpenters. So I did, they identified that in order to make trust one trust, how, how many days they would need it. There's a demonstration just in front of the Notre Dame. Well, the, there's a, maybe I skipped this. There's a place, where you can build yourself, the w houses, applying the medieval, medieval, techniques. So this seems to be the only place where you can learn how to build the medieval houses. But I skipped this one. And then I was, invited to join a team to visit the Notre Dame, still under, restoration, work, on December 6th, 2022. As you see that you had to change the clothes completely. and then, you have to take shower afterwards because, even 2022, the this, you never know how your body might be polluted. So this is the inside, this is, this is the, the foot of the spire. The foot of the spire. So you see how large is, this spire is the human beings is there. And this is just a foot. So it is. And, still this part was, the restoration was done, restoration was finished, and that was the big rose window, in a facade. So, I had a privilege to see it so closely, but, it's probably the last time. and, this, these are the pictures of Notre Dame, today. I visited last week. as you see, it's very clean. very white. and, this is a transect part. So this, this is where the big hole, was made. It's completely recovered. It is across from the behind and from the front. This is the organ. So organ was not damaged, but, it was, polluted. Therefore, they took, parts and then cleaned, every single piece. And they reassembled

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there.

3 43:38

and, they have to, see how the acoustic, would be influenced by the reconstruction a lot. So the Notre Dame has as a, the choir and also they have an organist and they will advise, how it is. And this is the one of the side channels they very, beautifully, cleaned well. so these are the very quick overview of what happens, and then what is now, just, for, The, let's say the food for thought. I put some slides additional. And, the, the biggest challenge for the Notre Dame reconstruction is the authenticity. If the reconstructed Notre Dame passes the authenticity test or not. this authenticity test, is usually assessed in accordance with the Venice Charter of 1964, and the non document is 1994. and, the Venice Charter, well, the, the authenticity test is categorically refused for intangible culture. Heritage, this is a very interesting phenomena. Music musicologists, or, or anthropologists. They say that intangible cultural heritage, traditional dance and songs, they are, they are not frozen. They are not fixed. So if, the bearers of traditions wanted to change, they are allowed to change. So authenticity is not categorically acceptable. They say very interesting thing is that the traditional building techniques is an intangible culture heritage. And as I said, this ensures the authenticity of material heritage. So the, if the intangible, traditional building technique is totally changed, how would be, how would it affect the authenticity of material heritage? This is not discussed yet, so too much. So the, in, in other words, the dialogues between the, let's say conservation architects and the anthropologists, musicologists, dialogues don't take place yet properly in, in my view. So this is, the, the field where the, scholars needs to further explore. in the case of, Notre Dame, it has also an aspect that, this was a reconstruction in post-trauma context. Please think about the, the cathedrals damaged in Ukraine, after the bombing, by Russia. they, if they want to reconstruct, would lose authenticity if they don't have the material or traditional materials and traditional skills or not. So this is another particularly politically pretty sensitive issue, how to, how to deal with this post-trauma context. And in fact, there are cases, eh, well the, I don't know if you know the Bian Buddha in Afghanistan, there was, the huge storm Buddha, and that was bombed and destroyed by Taliban. And after that event that the valley, it is Ian Ba, Baan Valley was inscribed as world cultural heritage. So after, after the destruction, now African government wants to reconstruct the Buddha. It didn't, it should it happen? Or should it not happen? This is related to this authenticity test and also the post-trauma, post-trauma issue. and on top of that, the African government currently is, the Muslim, Muslim government. do they really need a Buddha? So this is another cultural, debate. This needs another cultural debate. But anyway, so this is pretty, complicated issues. Difficult thing is that the under the World Hedge convention, we have operational guidelines, paragraph 86, and it says, in relation to authenticity, the reconstruction of archeological remains on historical, historic buildings or dis districts is justifiable only in exceptional circumstances. Reconstruction is acceptable only on the basis of complete and detailed documentation, and to no extent on conjuncture. So, the World Hedge Convention and Operational Guide takes pretty strict approach about, reconstruction. so the, we have this very strict narrative document, but the socially, or culturally, there's a strong need. So how to, let's say, balance these requests. This is, still, unsolved. big question to conclude my talk. I show some pictures from Japan. Do you know this? This is Roku on G Temple in Kyoto, and this golden pavilion is probably worldwide famous. UK Ma wrote also about, about this temple. Why? Because it was burned. It was burned. 1950. It was burned by a monk of that temple. So now the pavilion that we know now here is a reconstruction. Reconstruction. And after this fire, the government made a very deep, intensive, the research and they decided to reconstruct, the, this was actually, the building which was lost. this picture was taken in 19 0 4, 19 0 4. So, so this building was burned in 1950. So to reconstruct this one, the question was, you know, it is not gold. It's not golden. So they made a very scientific analysis and they found that the, in the wood, they found that a slight element of gold. So they decide, they decided, they concluded that building was gold, pla. but at the same time, you see the here,

1 50:36

let's see

Notre Dame Restoration Challenges

3 50:36

here. You see the open doors are open. He is also open. and you see this also older picture. You see people there, they're enjoying gardens. But this picture. You see, it's completely closed here. You're closed. So they also, made a research and it, they concluded that the, when it was built, so when it was built, there was no open, access to the garden. So the, they came to our conclusion that this access to the garden was made possible after m much virtual later when, than this was completed. And it means that they, the con reconstruction of this building was to go back to the time of original building. So this is different from Notre Dame. Notre Dame was going back to the stage where just before the fire guard. That was after Al Duke changed a lot. Okay, so when you, when we discussed about the reconstruction, so to which period we should go back, this is a very important decision making because it affects the style materials and then many other things. So this was a very, but the Japanese government seems to go back to the original, this is my impression. Okay, so this was a document that they identified, did this, they discover this is the document made in 1881. And, as you see that, you know, there's, no access to the garden. So they decided to follow this, approach. Okay, so the, I think this is the last slides. This is traditional. I mentioned traditional techniques, buildings, techniques, and it is still applied, in Japan. this is a roof making, this one is replace a part of the, part of the timber. you know, compared to the stone buildings, the, the wooden buildings would not blast for 300, 400 years. They have to, replace, the rotted part. But with this, replacement, the building could survive another 200 years. So, all the, it is, it takes time sometimes. the, the, restoration or restoration, work takes, 20 years. the very traditional Japanese technique is the. Building is, let's say, dismantled and change a rotted part with a new wood and a reassemble. And the percentage of the new wood is probably 15%. So this sort of large scale restoration work, it takes place in every 200 years or something like that. So it's a very expensive project so that you can't do that often by the work. Yes. Might not repair work. Yes. But that the dismantling and the reassembling and then keeps the original wood as much as possible, or, this is actually the traditional technique for Japan. And, well, this, this method is, probably not known in New York. But, this has been very much, well, well, and pretty well accepted, in other, okay, so this was the last slide. And, thank you very much for your, kind of tension. And if you have questions, I ask you.

2 54:32

Are

1 54:33

there any questions? Yes.

4 54:34

thank you so much for, taking out the time to, give us a dive into this. One of the things I'm curious about, particularly with the Notre Dame, is now after the fires, what measures have they taken to avoid that from happening again? Like, is there, did they change things and, I don't know, whatever procedures they have or maybe security checks, but just to prevent that from happening again? do you know if there's anything?

3 54:57

eh, I think they, Well, they, the big shock for them it was that the, although they installed alarm It didn't properly work. Yes. So they need to, I think they, they should have checked it more frequently and regularly if this alarm works or not. So, they, I think this is the, I think it can be said to, other, heritage buildings, once the big instance occur this way, then of course it's, is very disruptive. So, or prevention is very important. So in order to prevent you, you install, the proper system and then test it on, on, on a regular basis. And I think that they, introduced the modern. Modern allow system. Okay. and also the, for security check, I wasn't sure if I was, there was no security check at the entrance. I think they, they checked only the reservation. Okay. No, thank you. Have you been to Nor Dam after the completion? You, you went

5 55:58

Yeah, I wasn't able to visit it before the fire unfortunately, but I was there in December, on the last day of its Okta. Of, I see. I see. And it was fantastic to see it on, I mean, like you were saying, it's very clean. Yeah. Like every surface is like either white or very brightly colored. Yeah. I thought beautiful. But it's, I was wondering what your thoughts are actually, I've heard like a common like critique with restoration is that ing was characterized by like its darkness. like do you think that the re the reconstruction should have respected that present character? because you spoke about how. The government of France decided to restore the dam to its conditions immediately before the fire. but by the intensive cleaning, they moved it back to, well, I would say it was like the completion by LeDuc.

1 56:45

what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, but

3 56:54

in, in the sense that the, you know, the, in the case of Notre Dame, I think the cleaning of bald and side chapels, not only for, let's say the, not only for recreate the beauty, but also it was necessary to, for health reasons. Because, you know, the roofs were melted and then that was everywhere. So I think that they use the, they use that occasion on, that they use the, this occasion for cleaning. both purposes. But, well, I, yes, I know that sort of the

1 57:35

criticism. but yeah,

3 57:44

you know, the heritage buildings have a lot of layers. Lots of layers. So, if we go back to the original, then maybe, you know, the, well, as I said, the side chapels were added much later. Side chapels were added much later. So if you go back to the very original stage, I mean for the building restoration for the building restoration. Then that was that time, then there was no side chapter, and then we could go back to the period where the side chapter was made. But these side chapters were not added at the same time. So it's just a lot, you know, the Evolutionally built in a sense. So two weeks. Two weeks. it's not a simple question. I, I have to say.

5 58:31

Well, I would agree. So, only this last summer I was working at, an archeological site in Greece, and they're facing a similar question, at the sanctuary of the Great, the current director. She's a, just in the NIC period. And so, like the mo the primary work is done in that period and what's presented to the publicly visit the park, like what's exposed outta the earth in the Lennic period. but the sanctuary was used over a 1000 period. And so it's honestly a different conversation, but a similar one. What's. You like preserve and present, and what do you dig through for? For the research? It's, this is complicated. So I appreciate your thoughts on benefit, that

6 59:10

it's also a question of allowing the building to live. if you have a thousand years of candles and incense, the stone's gonna change color.

3 59:17

Yeah, sure. Yes.

6 59:18

If you install, some of the images you showed were horrifying of the complete work, all the electric light is completely defeating the windows. Yeah. And the complexity, just turn those things off. so the building has to have its own. So maybe I'm against myself if I wanna let the building do what's gonna do with candles and incense, let it do what it's gonna do with electric light. Light as well. But there's gotta be some sense that it's not just this, borrow a phrase from a certain movie, an object in as It's just leftover from a dinner party and all the guests won instead and gone.

Case Studies: Japan and Afghanistan

3 1:00:02

but it's a slightly different example. But, you know, the Japanese screen, painted screen, gorgeously painted in 18th century. And when you, now, when you visit, the museums with the spotlights beautifully, virtually, let's say, eliminated, but it was not the case when it was made. So, and, it was installed in, in, in the room with only with the temples. But you can't do that with the important cultural property. So there is a project to re reproduce the Japanese, screens digitally. They do some finished work by the, by, say, by. Manually. but, they, make the screen, reproduce a screen digitally and they lend these copies to schools. And in these, in the schools can exhibit only with candles so that the kids can then see how it looked like in, in 18th century. so this, this sort of experience, I think I heard that is a very good, reputations from schools. this kind of experience with the likes. And I think that this really affects also people's, people's, impression,

1 1:01:23

experiences as well.

7 1:01:29

A question about the forests?

3 1:01:31

Yes.

7 1:01:32

I go to Paris quite frequently. Yeah. So I've been able to follow through all the, their phase of the construction. There's one thing which I haven't quite understood, how did they stabilize such a huge amount of trusses and buttresses and things, because in the old times, they would never, ever use fresh wood. Would let it age for at least 60, 50, even a c sometimes. So certainly when they did the forest back then, in the Middle Ages. The timber that they used on the, to make the structure of roof was not fresh. Well, you know, here they've been cutting a lot of trees and they cut it very nicely with, as you were showing with axis manually everything. So that was beautifully done, but I quite not understanding how they can keep such a complex and massive structure still stabilized if they haven't used any industrial proceeding in drying out the wood like we normally do today. And I mean, you can't use, you know, if you wanna have a truss made outta wood, you have to put in a oven and you have to dry it out with the electric heat, you know, with some kind of heat and make, so the structure is not moving. Have they done that as, as far as, you know.

3 1:03:02

I haven't, I asked, but I don't get, I don't, I didn't get the very clear answer, so, but I was, I asked the question probably he's not the, good specialist. So, but that was also, one of the concerns for me, the stones, stone walls are also damaged by fire and water. And then on the top of that, they put this heavy trusses and the roofs. So all the, how they, well, the, either they reinforced the stalls or they made, trusses lighter, or both, or nothing. It is, this is, I think I have to ask, my colleagues.

1 1:03:56

Okay. I think we are, time is

2 1:03:59

running. I think we have the, the, all the question. Are there, is there a last question to ask to process? No one wants to be

6 1:04:11

one little finishing. How they, the roof this time? Is it lead again? Yes.

3 1:04:18

Yeah. they, they made a new roof with lead. So.

1 1:04:24

Wonderful. Okay. Thank you.