Resurrecting Notre-Dame de Paris

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.5 • 10.1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

National Geographic photographer Tomas van Houtryve documents the layered history and revival of one of the world’s most enduring landmarks, Notre-Dame de Paris. A reflection of the city and part of its soul, the cathedral has been ravaged, reimagined, and resurrected over the course of eight centuries. Badly damaged by fire in 2019, Notre-Dame is again in the hands of skilled artisans who are braving dizzying heights and dangerous conditions to bring the cathedral back to life. For more information on this episode, visit nationalgeographic.com/overheard. Want more? For more on the restoration of the Notre Dame de Paris, read National Geographic’s magazine story, which features Tomas van Houtryve’s photography and drone videos. Take a look at more than a century of photos of Notre Dame from National Geographic’s archive, including some very curious-looking gargoyles. The late art historian Andrew Tallon had a vision to map Notre-Dame de Paris with lasers. His work has aided the reconstruction of the cathedral. Also explore: Victor Hugo is a literary icon with deep connections throughout French culture. See the source of his inspirations here. Painter Henri Matisse could see Notre Dame from his window on Quai Saint-Michel; it was the subject of many of his paintings and sketches. But many other artists had their own angle on the cathedral. See 16 of them here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:36.9	I took a taxi there and it was still dark when I got there. It's kind of like entering
0:41.6	a space station or something that you show up, shed all your clothes, put it in lockers,
0:46.4	go through this vestibule and you come out on the other side wearing a climbing helmet,
0:51.0	a respirator mask, and a hazmat suit.
0:54.5	To Moss Van Hootreeve is a photographer, and he's telling me about his first day on the
0:58.6	job for a National Geographic assignment.
1:01.5	The first day, I went up the spiral staircases of the North Belt Tower, these long, long
1:08.5	stone spiral staircases, and then you pop out at one of the levels and you're on this
1:14.5	balustrad or balcony with all of these gargoyles, the famous iconic gargoyles. It's called
1:21.1	the Galerie de Chimères in French and they're all sitting overlooking Paris. And Sirus was
1:26.9	sort of twinkling in this pre-dawn atmosphere. You can see the Sen River from there, you can
1:31.7	see the Eiffel Tower.
1:34.9	To Moss's view of Paris is unique. He's gazing over the city from a place that has inspired
1:40.2	countless artists, from novelist Victor Hugo to painter Henri Matisse to dancer Jean Kelly.
1:46.7	Not to mention more than 800 years of devout worshipers.
1:50.4	And then we went up even more spiral staircases to the very top of the South Belt Tower.
	...

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