In case you were interested there will be another online meeting of guild members and non-members today/tonight.

Here are some details:

Just a heads up that we have a TFG Live call tonight at 7 Eastern time, open to TFG members and non-members alike.
The topic is service projects, and how we can give back to our communities and beyond. We expect to discuss Notre Dame, TFG Community Building Projects, how the Guild can help activate members in your own community and more. I know a lot of you have posted photos of projects you've done in your own communities; we'd love to hear about the whole process and what these projects have meant to you.
You can access the call here: https://tfguild.us7.list-manage.com/track/click… (If you haven't used zoom conferencing before, you'll be prompted to install the app.) You can also call in, dial 1-669-900-6833 and enter the meeting ID: 249 174 8820.

Jim Rogers
TFG member since 2000

[quote=. We expect to discuss Notre Dame,
[/quote]
Are you in contact with Francois Calame? I spoke two weeks ago with him. He has submitted two days after the fire proposals to the right ministry on behalf of CsF but was not optimistic. Before there is a possibility of a proper restoration it would take a ground-swell.

Hi Don

Check out this link to read about how Notre Dame cathedral has to be rebuilt to exactly the same form as before the fire.

This means that the scope for timber-framer involvement is now secure.

Ken Hume

I'm not so sure, Ken.
Reims and Chartres roofs were both rebuilt after fire with iron and concrete trusses, and they could be "justified" in this case as well. See my blog post on this topic for pictures..
"...is faithful to the "last known visual state" of the building" may mean the exterior forms and not the structure that few ever see.
I would be thrilled to see the roof timber framed, of course.

That night Francois came by was the day after the National Assembly, (dominated by En Marche), had approved an exemption in the case of Notre Dame to the patrimony law governing restoration and maintenance basically providing free reign over the reconstruction - the wet dream of Macron. It seems, from your article Ken that the Senate has thankfully tempered the efforts of these so-called "moderates". Well, it is at this stage a purely bureaucratic process. I'm pretty sure Calame is in the midst of it all and could direct any good will on offer into the most effective channel. It's why I inquired about the contact.
Maybe a difference between Notre Dame and the Reims and Chartres reconstructions is that the concept of preservation, not being static, has gotten better since those jobs.That cultural heritage is more than simply material but includes the immaterial as well.
I won't go as far as assuming that with knowledge proper action follows but think there is maybe some small opening for a good broad-based lobbying action which might proceed along the strands of that tangled institutional web of French bureaucracy ending up on the table when the decisions are made.

Hi Will,

You could well be correct in your surmises about how something like a cathedral might be rebuilt.

The roof of York Minster burned (in part) quite a few years ago now and when it came to rebuilding homage was played by using oak but everything was bolted and split ring connected together which frankly I found to be somewhat of a disappointment. There is a difference between utility and artistry.

The same was also true with the rebuilding of the roof of St George's chapel at Windsor Castle after the major fire where the engineers did not believe that the hammer beam roof could be relied upon to be reinstated in its original form and so constructed a metal roof over the new (Capps & Capps) hammer beam roof and then link suspended the hammer beam roof from the steel roof above.

Sometimes it would just not be possible to follow previous practice e.g. as in the case of the internal scaffold on the spire at Salisbury cathedral where the original access to build the scaffold was most probably from the outside ahead of the stone masonary that followed upwards therebye encasing the timber scaffold.

The timber-framing fraternity has made huge strides forward over the past 20 - 30 years but it still needs to develop a voice that can be heard and also be persuasive to help overcome the lack of confidence by the unintiated in order that wood night perform as it did hundreds of years ago and is still quite capable of doing the same today.

Ken Hume

Philippe Villeneuve architecte on Notre Dame restoration: Good

E. Macron and his henchman, aka "the Butcher", Gen Jean-Louis Georgelin: Bad