Saving Notre Dame

Ironically, my NGC is bingeing "Alaska Sate Troopers".

LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton SE will save the notre dame, they have the money

Did anyone else watch this? It was very good. I think there might be a part 2 at some point because the show ended with workers removing the scaffolding.

It was broadcast here in the UK earlier this week.

Excellent and well researched and presented by the people who know what they are talking about.

It was very much up to the present day.

Just resurrecting this post because there is another thread about a show on Notre Dame. This was a show called Saving Notre Dame and was on the National Geographic channel. Very good!

Thank you everyone who watched and recommended this. It was a wonderful National Geographic presentation. I really enjoyed watching it and marveling at all the expertise that goes into an undertaking of this magnitude and importance. It was listed as Season 1 Episode 1 so maybe there will be more as the work progresses. It was heartwarming to know at least the Cathedral is stabilized

Yes, thanks for reminding me -- it is On Demand here, so I can watch both Notre Dame specials this week.

Just watched it 'on demand' and it was great. Can't wait till next Tuesday's PBS show. The only problem is that they showed so many clips of the fire and it made me sad all over again. Hope I'll still be around by the time it's rebuilt.

Thank you for sharing!

FYI, this week they started dismantling the melted scaffolding — which in the Saving Notre Dame documentary we saw them taking such pains to secure so it wouldn’t crush the rest of the building.

Also last week or so, part of the plaza in front of the cathedral reopened for the first time since the fire.

I agree that the documentary was absolutely compelling viewing. Seeing some of the techniques that they are having to use in the reconstruction (which was first some serious DEconstruction) was truly awe-inspiring.

I hadn't heard about this but will watch for it on the National Geographic channel. I suspect it will be broadcast more than once.

I certainly hope that all the rich folks and corporations that promised billions of Euro for reconstruction will follow through and provide what they promised.

When Notre Dame had the fire and its dome collapsed - I felt bad about it. Then, I decided to look at it another way. Most large churches are constant works in progress. Each generation gets to add to the church in some way. The citizens of France have an opportunity to create a new dome and make a significant addition to the cathedral.

Sun Baked I loved your perspective. I have been studying cathedrals in depth this week with a Great Courses course and it is so true that most of them were works in progress over many years and many have modern stained glass windows.

I have visited probably around a hundred cathedrals in Europe in my life, including the Cathedral in Augsburg, Germany, said to house the oldest stain glass in the World (still on site). It is from the 11thCentury.

That glass is said to include the original glass, I have had tours that explained how some of the glass had to be replaced due to damages from fire, war or other causes. Still, it would seem to me that much of the original glass is still there, depending of course on location.
I remember that WWII was deadly for the stained glass at Westminster Abbey.

In 2017, we visited Cathedrals in York, Durham, Winchester, Wells, Oxford, St. David's (Wales) and Cardiff (Wales).

In York, Durham and Winchester, our tour guides explained efforts to preserve the stain glass. Apparently, an entire sheet of glass is installed between the stain glass and the atmosphere on the outside to protect it from the elements. That glass is clear.

I particularly remember the amazing stain glass in York Minster. I believe there is much from the 14th and 15th Centuries.

Just FYI, there wasn’t any dome that collapsed at Notre Dame. The roof collapsed and the 19th-century spire. Notre Dame doesn’t have a dome.

Cala,
I have that course!
Kim,
You are right about the dome matter. It was the steeple/spire that collapsed. It was a roof fire. Assisi had its dome collapse at the Basilica of St. Francis due to an earthquake. Thanks for the correction.

One of my favorite cathedral stories is the Duomo in Florence. The Florentines decided to build a cathedral with a dome. One issue: no one at the time knew how to build a dome. So, the ever hopeful Florentines decided to build it anyway. Their reasoning - by the time the cathedral is close to completion - someone will figure out how to build a dome. The cathedral was started in the late 1200's. After the main church was built - it remained without a dome for decades. Just a big hole in the ceiling where a dome should be. Finally, Brunelleschi came along in the 1400's and finished the job. So, the original builders did not live long enough to see the completion of their life-long efforts.

I'm a little surprised they are going to rebuild it exactly as it was.

I was kind of hoping they would rebuild it in a new way so Parisians could complain about it nonstop - like the Louvre pyramid and the Eiffel Tower - then finally decide it's a masterpiece. ;-)

I get a lot of French satire on my Facebook feed. One I really enjoyed lately was a cartoon about French complaining about having to stay home in one panel, then complaining about having to go back to work in the next.