After the spire of the 850-year-old building was completely destroyed in the blaze, the French government announced the contest to redesign it, BBC reported.
Emmanuel Macron promised the nation on Tuesday night that Notre Dame will be “more beautiful than before” after the renovation and rebuilding. According to the French President, in five years, the symbol of France will welcome the first visitors after the re-opening of the cathedral.
Meanwhile, such a tight timetable many experts find impossible, the blaze has almost destroyed the old building. To reborn it, France launches an international architectural competition to redesign the roofline of Notre Dame Cathedral. For experts, it will be the real challenge because a huge fire gutted the oak-beamed structure and sent its 300ft spire crashing into the nave.
France’s prime minister Édouard Philippe said the competition would give the 850-year-old building “a spire suited to the techniques and challenges of our time”. While PM said that the preliminary cost of rebuilding had yet to be made, French billionaires, multinationals and private citizens have so far raised €880m for the restoration of that complex, beautiful and fragile historical monument.
Notre Dame’s spire will be restored in several years
Notre Dame’s rector said he expected the building to remain closed to the public for five to six years. “A segment has been very weakened,” said Bishop Patrick Chauvet. Thanks to modern technologies, the timetable could be shorter than expected, everything depends on the complexity of the architectural project. On Thursday, France announced the international contest to redesign Notre Dame spire.
A fire service spokesman said there was no immediate danger that the structure, which lost two-thirds of its roof in the fire, would collapse. Firefighters have used a drone to survey the scale of the destruction. But it was not yet considered secure enough for investigators to enter and start examining the source of the fire in situ, the prosecutor’s office said.
The spire destroyed in the blaze was added to the cathedral during a 19th Century restoration project led by French architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc.
