Notre Dame rebuilt, reverently restored 5 years after world watched French cathedral burn
Next Sunday, the doors of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris will open to the public for the first time since April 2019, when a devastating fire nearly destroyed the great gothic church. Two formal masses will be celebrated, and then as many as 40,000 visitors a day will begin streaming through.
What they will see is something of a modern miracle. Notre Dame has been rebuilt and restored five years after the world watched it burn. Two weeks ago, we were given unique access inside the cathedral as workers and artists applied the final touches.
Many people deserve credit for the resurrection of Notre Dame, but none more than French President Emmanuel Macron.
Bill Whitaker: You made a promise the day after Notre Dame burned in 2019 and you said, quote, "We will rebuild Notre Dame more beautiful than before, and I want it done in the next five years." Did you have any doubts when you said that, that that might be possible?
Emmanuel Macron: If you have a doubt, it's already over.
Bill Whitaker: Someone we spoke to called it a moonshot moment.
Emmanuel Macron: These five years was a sort of new frontier. This is parf-- perfectly true. When I announced the five years all the experts, a lot of people just made comments to say, "He is crazy."
Bill Whitaker: So what gave you the confidence, while Notre Dame was still smoking.
Emmanuel Macron: I saw these guys, these firemen, I mean, just going beyond their own capacities with such energy and-- and commitment. And I think this is exactly-- this is a sort of metaphor of-- what our societies, and especially our-- our democracies, need. Make possible the unthinkable.
Philippe Jost: We are all very proud of what we have done together.
Last year, President Macron appointed Philippe Jost to lead the team restoring Notre Dame. Two weeks ago, we met him just inside what was still an active construction zone.
Bill Whitaker: What words come to mind when you first walk in?
Philippe Jost: The light. The light is very-- breathtaking. And the space. In this monument there is a soul.
Bill Whitaker: A soul--
Philippe Jost: A-- soul. And we feel that when we enter now. We feel that.
To walk into Notre Dame today is to see no sign of 2019. Then, the cathedral's nave was littered with burnt wood and stone rubble, a gaping hole in the ceiling where the flaming spire crashed through. Even when we visited in 2023, a dense forest of scaffolding remained. Now, it is open and airy. Every stone shines, every stained glass window is polished, every masterpiece glows, all topped by a new spire and a new roof replacing the utter destruction of five years ago.
Philippe Jost: We had the big vault there to rebuild.
Bill Whitaker: So there was a gaping hole–
Philippe Jost: A big hole there. When President Macron said five years-- we knew that this point here was the most challenging space of the restoration.
If Philippe Jost is now commander in chief of the restoration, Philippe Villeneuve remains its artistic director. Chief architect of the cathedral since well before the fire, we saw him in 2023 supervising every detail and every artisan.
Bill Whitaker: You also told us that rebuilding Notre Dame was, in a way, rebuilding yourself after the fire. Do you feel rebuilt now?
Philippe Villeneuve: Oui.
"Yes," Villeneuve told us, "today I can watch images of the fire; see the spire falling into the flames. That's something I couldn't watch before."
Last year, Villeneuve supervised the construction of a new wooden spire and its lead covering, and designed a new rooster – a symbol of the French people - for its very peak. It was put in place last December.
Philippe Villeneuve: Et lorsque j'ai vu surgir la flèche et la couverture en plomb…
"When I saw the spire and the lead roof appear," Villeneuve said, "when we put the rooster and the cross in place, I felt that a wound had been closed."
Emmanuel Macron: 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.
Many of the achievements – like the new spire and roof - are massive; Notre Dame's huge bells were removed after the fire for cleaning and repair, then returned and tested a few weeks ago. Its organ – with 8,000 pipes, the largest in France – was also removed, repaired, and reinstalled…the day we were there an organist filled the cathedral with thunderous, soaring sound.
Somehow small achievements feel just as noteworthy; outside, workmen dangling on ropes to hammer wood into place and carefully cementing paving stones. Inside, delicately applying wax to ancient wood, ensuring that every lightbulb is lit and every floor polished.
Diana Castillo: Our job is-- mostly to bring back all the value of mural painting.
Painting restorer Diana Castillo has been working in the many small chapels of Notre Dame, where centuries ago murals were painted onto stone walls and ceilings.
Diana Castillo: We had a lot of work to clean them.
Diana shared photos and video of what the chapels and paintings looked like when she and other restorers began their work after the fire - cloudy and dim – and their appearance now, after cleaning.
Diana Castillo: So we did one chapel after another, after another and after we finish the cleaning (laugh) process, it was really almost one year. We were like, "Okay. Now we can see the paint. Now we can appreciate it and start the real-- the-- the restoration."
Bill Whitaker: So you were not just removing the soot from the fire, but you were removing the grime from centuries?
Diana Castillo: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. From 1850 actually. Many of them had never been touched since 1850. So you imagine, hundred seventy years.
Today, the murals are gleaming. ceilings show starry nights of deep blue and gold, and stone columns that had been grey are now kaleidoscopes of color.
Bill Whitaker: And you have brought those colors back to life?
Diana Castillo: Absolutely, yes. And I'm sure many people will be shocked. And the "resultats" like this are very satisfying for us, of course.
Similar transformations are everywhere in the new Notre Dame. Stone walls and ceilings that had been dark and gloomy seem to shine, and so do the many marble statues and decorative metalworks. The workers and craftspeople who have pulled all this off are known as "compagnons," and their work is celebrated on huge banners overlooking the River Seine.
Bill Whitaker: We've heard of something called the Notre Dame effect, which is young people being drawn to traditional crafts and trades because of the work they're doing and seeing being done here at the cathedral. Have you witnessed that?
Philippe Villeneuve: Evidemment, Notre Dame a ete une formidable ecole…
"It's true," Philippe Villeneuve told us, "that Notre Dame was a formidable school for all the different crafts. Carpenters, metalworkers, stone carvers, painters; all these kinds of jobs were boosted by the restoration."
Anne Dias: I visited the site a few times. And each time, what struck me the most was the commitment, and the joy, and the responsibility of the companions that I met.
Anne Dias Griffin was born in France and educated in the U.S., where she runs an investment firm. She has helped mobilize financial support in America to revitalize Notre Dame.
Bill Whitaker: Why do you think this symbol of Paris and of France inspires such strong feelings not just here, but in the U.S. and-- and around the world?
Anne Dias: Notre-Dame symbolizes something universal. And that's something to be cherished.
Anne's contribution to the restoration effort was one of the largest from anyone in the U.S.
Anne Dias: The support from Americans was just tremendous. There were over 45,000 donors who contributed funds to the cathedral for a sum of over $57 million. So we should be incredibly proud of that.
Every penny of that has been needed. The total cost of restoring Notre Dame is nearing a billion dollars, including, Philippe Jost told us, for measures to prevent another tragedy.
Bill Whitaker: So you have-- new fire detection, new fire suppression systems that have all been installed?
Philippe Jost: Installed in the roof.
Bill Whitaker: So that would prevent another catastrophe like this from ever happening again?
Philippe Jost: We are very confident in that. It will not happen again.
Jost also expressed confidence that rebuilding the "new" Notre dame using the "old" materials of wood and stone and lead will help it to last.
Philippe Jost: The cathedral is 860 years old, and we will restore it for 860 years.
Bill Whitaker: That it will last another--
Philippe Jost: Another 860 years--
Bill Whitaker: --860 years.
Philippe Jost: And perhaps more.
Architect Philippe Villeneuve championed the use of traditional materials, especially to build the towering new spire just as the old one had been constructed. But he let us in on a secret: there is one new touch up there.
Philippe Villeneuve: j'ai laissé moi même une petite trace de moi,
"I left a small mark of myself," he told us. "On one of the hooks of the new spire is my face, with an admiring and affectionate look, to represent all the compagnons who rebuilt the cathedral."
Emmanuel Macron: Bill how are you.
Bill Whitaker: Bonjour, Monsieur le President.
President Macron visited Notre Dame while we were there, when it was still buzzing with preparations for opening day.
Emmanuel Macron: It's impressive and very moving to see that we still have dozens of-- of people working hard to finish the job.
And as Notre Dame's great doors reopen, might that spirit be even a little bit contagious?
Bill Whitaker: There's a lot of political division here in France, as there is in the United States. So in this climate, how important is it to have a project like this that unifies rather than divides?
Emmanuel Macron: We speak about moment of unity and pride. And this is exactly what our nations need, especially in that times. We should try to consider th-- this type of moment and great projects and saying if we're ready and able to do so, why don't we try to fix other, perhaps more abstract but very important, big issues of our countries?
Bill Whitaker: So the impossible is not impossible, huh?
Emmanuel Macron: Definitely. It's French motto. Impossible is not French.
Produced by Rome Hartman. Associate producer, Matthew Riley. Broadcast associate, Mariah Johnson. Edited by Craig Crawford.
